The Plague of Locusts

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, so that I may perform these signs of Mine among them,

For if you refuse to let My people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Reach out with your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, so that they may come up on the land of Egypt and eat every plant of the land, everything that the hail has left.”

So Moses reached out with his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord directed an east wind on the land all that day and all that night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts.

The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled in all the territory of Egypt; they were very numerous. There had never been so many locusts, nor would there be so many again.

So the Lord shifted the wind to a very strong west wind, which picked up the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea; not one locust was left in all the territory of Egypt.

These of them you may eat: the locust in its kinds, the devastating locust in its kinds, the cricket in its kinds, and the grasshopper in its kinds.

“You will bring out a great amount of seed to the field, but you will gather in little, because the locust will devour it.

For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, they would come in like locusts in number, and both they and their camels were innumerable; and they came into the land to ruin it.

Now the Midianites, the Amalekites, and all the people of the east were lying in the valley as numerous as locusts; and their camels were without number, as numerous as the sand on the seashore.

“If there is a famine in the land, if there is a plague, if there is blight or mildew, locust or grasshopper, if their enemy harasses them in the land of their cities, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is,

“If there is a famine in the land, if there is a plague, if there is blight or mildew, if there is locust or grasshopper, if their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities, whatever plague or whatever sickness there is,

If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send a plague among My people,

Do you make him leap like locusts? His majestic snorting is frightening.

He also gave their crops to the grasshopper And the product of their labor to the locust.

He spoke, and locusts came, And creeping locusts, beyond number,

I am passing like a shadow when it lengthens; I am shaken off like the locust.

The locusts have no king, Yet all of them go out in ranks;

Your plunder is gathered as the caterpillar gathers; Like an infestation of locusts, people storm it.

They have cut down her forest,” declares the Lord; “Certainly it will no longer be found, Even though they are more numerous than locusts And are without number.

The Lord of armies has sworn by Himself: “I will certainly fill you with a population like locusts, And they will cry out with shouts of victory over you.”

Lift up a signal flag in the land, Blow a trumpet among the nations! Consecrate the nations against her, Summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz; Appoint an officer against her, Bring up the horses like bristly locusts.

The Devastation by Locusts

The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:

What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; And what the swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten; And what the creeping locust has left, the stripping locust has eaten.

“Then I will compensate you for the years That the swarming locust has eaten, The creeping locust, the stripping locust, and the gnawing locust— My great army which I sent among you.