Top of Page
Page Style
word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel.
2 Hear this, you elders;
listen, all you inhabitants of the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your days
or in the days of your forefathers?
3 Tell your children about it,
and let your children tell their children,
and their children to the next generation.
4 What the chewing locust has left,
the swarming locusts have eaten;
what the swarming locusts have left,
the hopping locust has eaten;
what hopping locust has left,
the destroying locust has eaten.
5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all you wine drinkers,
because of the new wine,
for it has been snatched from your mouth.
6 For a nation has invaded My land,
powerful and without number;
its teeth are the teeth of a lion,
and it has the fangs of a lioness.
7 It has laid waste My vine,
and ruined My fig tree.
It has stripped off its bark
and thrown it away;
its branches have turned white.
8 Lament like a virgin dressed in sackcloth
grieving for the husband of her youth.
9 The grain offering and the drink offering
has been cut off from the House of the Lord.
The priests are in mourning,
those who minister before the Lord.
10 The fields are ruined,
the land mourns;
the grain is destroyed,
the wine is dried up,
the oil fails.
11 Be dismayed, you farmers,
wail, you vinedressers,
grieve for the wheat and the barley,
because the harvest of the field has perished.
12 The vine is dried up
and the fig tree is withered;
the pomegranate, the palm, and the apple tree—
all the trees of the orchard—have withered.
Surely the joy of mankind
has withered away.
13 Put on sackcloth and lament, you priests;
wail, you who minister before the altar.
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
you who minister before my God;
for the grain offerings and the drink offerings
are withheld from the house of your God.
14 Declare a consecrated fast;
call a sacred assembly!
Summon the elders
and all the inhabitants of the land
to the house of the Lord your God,
and cry out to the Lord.
15 Alas for that day!
For the Day of the Lord is near;
it will come as destruction from the Almighty.
16 Has not the food been cut off
before our very eyes,
joy and gladness
from the house of our God?
17 The seeds are shrivelled
beneath the clods.
The storehouses are desolate,
the granaries have been broken down,
for the grain has withered away.
18 How the animals groan!
The herds of cattle mill
about because they have no pasture;
even the flocks of sheep are suffering.
19 To You, O Lord, I cry out;
for fire has devoured the open pastures,
and flames have consumed all the trees across the land.
20 Even the wild animals howl out to You,
for the watercourses are dried up,
and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.