¹The word of Yahweh which was to Joel the son of Pethuel.

²Hear this, you elders, and give ear, all who dwell in the land. Was there this in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

³Recount it over to your sons, and your sons to their sons, and their sons to another generation.

⁴The rest of the locust ate the locust, and the rest of the locust ate the locust, and the rest of the locust ate the consuming.

⁵Wake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you who drink wine, over the new wine, for it is cut from your mouth.

⁶For a nation came up over my land, mighty and there is no number; his teeth are the teeth of the lion, and the fangs of the lion are to it.

⁷My vine he put to desolation, and my fig to splinters; he surely bared it and threw her down, her branches made brick.

⁸Wail like a virgin girded in sackcloth over the lord of her youth.

⁹The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of Yahweh; the priests mourn, who serve Yahweh.

¹⁰The field is devastated, the ground mourns; for the grain is devastated, the new wine dried up, the oil wasted.

¹¹The farmers are ashamed, the vinedressers wail, over the wheat and over the barley, for the harvest of the field has perished.

¹²The vine is ashamed, and the fig wasted; the pomegranate also, the palm and the apple, all the trees of the field are dried up; for joy is ashamed from the children of man.

¹³Gird and mourn, you priests; wail, you who serve the altar; come, lodge the night in sackcloth, you who serve my God; for the grain offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.

¹⁴Set apart a fast, call an assembly, gather the elders, all who dwell in the land, to the house of Yahweh your God, and cry to Yahweh.

¹⁵For the day is near, the day of Yahweh, and as a destruction from the Almighty it will come.

¹⁶Is not the food cut off before our eyes, from the house of our God gladness and rejoicing?

¹⁷The seeds seed under their shovels, the treasuries are desolated, the granaries demolished, for the grain is dried up.

¹⁸How the livestock groan! The arrangements of the cattle are bewildered, for there is no pasture to them; also the arrangements of the flock bear it.

¹⁹To you, Yahweh, I will call, for fire has eaten the pastures of the wilderness, and a flame devoured all the trees of the field.

²⁰Also the livestock of the field pant to you, for the waters are dried up, and fire ate the channels of the wilderness, ate the pasture.