¹The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
²Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
³Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
⁴That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.
⁵Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
⁶For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion.
⁷He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.
⁸Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
⁹The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD'S ministers, mourn.
¹⁰The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.
¹¹Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.
¹²The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men.
¹³Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.