Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the Lord.

A Call to Lamentation

Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn; wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God; for the grain offerings and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.

Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes— joy and gladness from the house of our God?

Before them fire devours, behind them a flame blazes. Before them the land is like the garden of Eden, behind them, a desert waste— nothing escapes them.

Before them the earth shakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars no longer shine.

Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.

The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.