Joel 1

1 The word of the Lord which came to Joel the son of Bathuel.

The Lord sent a message through Joel, son of Pethuel.

2 Hear these [words], you elders, and listen all you that inhabit the land. Have such things happen in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

Listen to this, elders; pay attention, everyone who lives in the land. Has anything ever happened like this before in your experience, or that of your forefathers?

3 Tell your children concerning them, and [let] your children [tell] their children, and their children another generation.

Tell your children about it, and have your children tell it to their children, and their children tell the next generation.

4 The leavings of the caterpillar has the locust eaten, and the leavings of the locust has the palmerworm eaten, and the leavings of the palmerworm has the cankerworm eaten.

What the cutting locusts left, the swarming locusts have eaten; what the swarming locusts left, the hopping locusts have eaten; what the hopping locusts left, the destroying locusts have eaten.

5 Awake, you drunkards, from your wine, and weep: mourn, all you that drink wine to drunkenness: for joy and gladness and removed are from your mouth.

Wake up, you drunks, and weep! Howl you wine-drinkers, because the new wine has been suddenly taken away from your mouth!

6 For a strong and innumerable nation is come up against my land, their teeth are lion's teeth, and their back teeth those of a [lion's] whelp.

A nation has invaded my land: powerful and too many to count. Their teeth are like lion's teeth, their fangs like those of a lioness.

7 He has ruined my vine, and utterly broken my fig-trees: he has utterly searched [my vine], and cast it down; he has peeled its branches.

It has ruined my grapevines and destroyed my fig trees, stripping them completely and reducing them to stumps, white and bare.

8 Lament to me more than a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

Mourn like a bride dressed in sackcloth, mourning the death of her husband-to-be.

9 The meat-offering and drink-offering are removed from the house of the Lord: mourn, you priests that serve at the altar of the Lord.

Grain and wine offerings have stopped in the Temple. The priests who minister before the Lord are in mourning.

10 For the plains languish: let the land mourn, for the corn languishes; the wine is dried up, the oil becomes scarce;

The fields are devastated, the earth mourns; for the grain is ruined, the new wine dries up, the olive oil fails.

11 the husbandmen are consumed: mourn your property on account of the wheat and barley; for the harvest has perished from off the field.

Be ashamed, farmers, and wail in sorrow, keepers of vineyards, over the wheat and the barley, for the crops from the fields are ruined.

12 The vine is dried up, and the fig-trees are become few; the pomegranate, and palm tree, and apple, and all trees of the field are dried up: for the sons of men have have abolished joy.

The vines are shriveled, the fig trees are withered; the pomegranate, the palm, and the apricot trees—all the fruit trees have dried up, and at the same time the people's happiness has also dried up.

13 Gird yourselves [with sackcloth], and lament, you priests: mourn, you that serve at the altar: go in, sleep in sackcloths, you that minister to God: for the meat-offering and drink-offering are withheld from the house of your God.

Dress in sackcloth, you priests, and mourn; weep, you who minister before the altar! Go and spend the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the grain and wine offerings have stopped in the Temple.

14 Sanctify a fast, proclaim a [solemn] service, gather the elders [and] all the inhabitants of the land into the house of your God, and cry earnestly to the Lord,

Proclaim a fast; call a sacred assembly. Have the elders and all people of the land gather in the Temple, and cry out to your God, to the Lord.

15 Alas, Alas, Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is near, and it will come as trouble upon trouble.

What a terrible day! For the day of the Lord is near, it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

16 [Your] meat has been destroyed before your eyes, joy and gladness from out of the house of your God.

Haven't we seen our food taken away from us, right before our eyes? There is no joy and happiness in God's Temple.

17 The heifers have started at their mangers, the treasures are abolished, the wine presses are broken down; for the corn is withered.

Seeds planted in the ground shrivel up; the storehouses are empty, the barns are torn down because the grain has dried up.

18 What shall we store up for ourselves? the herds of cattle have mourned, because they had no pasture; and the flocks of sheep have been utterly destroyed.

The farm animals moan with hunger. The herds of cattle wander everywhere because they can't find grass to eat; the flocks of sheep are suffering.

19 To you, O Lord, will I cry: for fire has devoured the fair places of the wilderness, and a flame has burnt up all the trees of the field.

To you, Lord, I cry out! For fire has destroyed the pastures in the wilderness; flames have burned up all the orchards.

20 And the cattle of the field have looked up to you: for the fountains of waters have been dried up, and fire has devoured the fair places of the wilderness.

Even the wild animals long for you because the streams have dried up, and fire has destroyed the pastures in the wilderness.