Joel 1:2-12
New American Standard Bible
2 (A)Hear this, you (B)elders,
And listen, all inhabitants of the land.
(C)Has anything like this happened in your days,
Or in your fathers’ days?
3 (D)Tell your sons about it,
And have your sons tell their sons,
And their sons the next generation.
4 What the (E)gnawing locust has left, the [a]swarming locust has eaten;
And what the (F)swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten;
And what the creeping locust has left, the (G)stripping locust has eaten.
5 Awake, (H)you heavy drinkers, and weep;
And wail, all you wine drinkers,
Because of the sweet wine,
For it has been (I)eliminated from your mouth.
6 For a (J)nation has [b]invaded my land,
Mighty and without number;
(K)Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,
And it has the jaws of a lioness.
7 It has (L)made my vine a waste
And my fig tree a stump.
It has stripped them bare and hurled them away;
Their branches have become white.
8 (M)Wail like a virgin (N)clothed with sackcloth
For the groom of her youth.
9 The (O)grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off
From the house of the Lord.
The (P)priests mourn,
The ministers of the Lord.
10 The field is (Q)ruined,
(R)The land mourns;
For the grain is ruined,
The new wine has dried up,
Fresh oil has [c]failed.
11 (S)Be ashamed, you farm workers,
Wail, you vinedressers,
For the wheat and the barley;
Because the (T)harvest of the field is destroyed.
12 The (U)vine has dried up
And the fig tree has withered;
The (V)pomegranate, the (W)palm also, and the (X)apple tree,
All the trees of the field have dried up.
Indeed, (Y)joy has dried up
From the sons of mankind.
Joel 1:2-12
New Living Translation
Mourning over the Locust Plague
2 Hear this, you leaders of the people.
Listen, all who live in the land.
In all your history,
has anything like this happened before?
3 Tell your children about it in the years to come,
and let your children tell their children.
Pass the story down from generation to generation.
4 After the cutting locusts finished eating the crops,
the swarming locusts took what was left!
After them came the hopping locusts,
and then the stripping locusts,[a] too!
5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all you wine-drinkers!
All the grapes are ruined,
and all your sweet wine is gone.
6 A vast army of locusts[b] has invaded my land,
a terrible army too numerous to count.
Its teeth are like lions’ teeth,
its fangs like those of a lioness.
7 It has destroyed my grapevines
and ruined my fig trees,
stripping their bark and destroying it,
leaving the branches white and bare.
8 Weep like a bride dressed in black,
mourning the death of her husband.
9 For there is no grain or wine
to offer at the Temple of the Lord.
So the priests are in mourning.
The ministers of the Lord are weeping.
10 The fields are ruined,
the land is stripped bare.
The grain is destroyed,
the grapes have shriveled,
and the olive oil is gone.
11 Despair, all you farmers!
Wail, all you vine growers!
Weep, because the wheat and barley—
all the crops of the field—are ruined.
12 The grapevines have dried up,
and the fig trees have withered.
The pomegranate trees, palm trees, and apple trees—
all the fruit trees—have dried up.
And the people’s joy has dried up with them.
New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved.
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
