The word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel.
Hear this, elders, and give ear, all inhabitants of the land. Has this happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
Tell your sons of it, and your sons their sons, and their sons another generation.
What the cutting locust left, the locust ate; and what the locust left, the young locust ate; and what the young locust left, the stripping locust ate.
Awake, drunkards, and weep; and wail, all drinkers of wine, over the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.
For a nation has come up against my land, mighty and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and it has the fangs of a lioness.
It has laid my vine waste and my fig tree to splinters; it has stripped it bare and thrown it down; its branches are made white.
A Call to Mourning
Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
Grain offering and drink offering are cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the ministers of the LORD, mourn.
The field is devastated, the ground mourns; for the grain is devastated, the new wine dries up, the fresh oil languishes.
Be ashamed, farmers; wail, vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley — for the harvest of the field has perished.
The vine dries up and the fig tree languishes; pomegranate, palm also, and apple — all the trees of the field are dried up. For joy dries up from the sons of man.
A Call to Repentance
Gird yourselves and lament, priests; wail, ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, ministers of my God — for grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.
Sanctify a fast, call an assembly; gather the elders, all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.
Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is near, and it comes like devastation from the Devastator.
Is not the food cut off before our eyes, gladness and rejoicing from the house of our God?
The seeds shrivel under their clods; the storehouses are desolate, the granaries are torn down — for the grain has dried up.
How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are bewildered, because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep bear guilt.
To you, LORD, I call — for fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and a flame has scorched all the trees of the field.
Even the beasts of the field pant for you, for the channels of water have dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
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