1:1  THE WORD of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.

1:2  Hear this, you aged men, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing as this occurred in your days or even in the days of your fathers?

1:3  Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.

1:4  What the crawling locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; and what the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten; and what the hopping locust left, the stripping locust has eaten.

1:5  Awake, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the [fresh] sweet juice [of the grape], for it is cut off {and} removed from your mouth.

1:6  For a [heathen and hostile] nation [of locusts, illustrative of a human foe] has invaded My land, mighty and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and it has the jaw teeth of a lioness.

1:7  It has laid waste My vine [symbol of God's people] and barked {and} broken My fig tree; it has made them completely bare and thrown them down; their branches are made white.

1:8  Lament like a virgin [bride] girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth [who has died].

1:9  The meal {or} cereal offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord's ministers, mourn.

1:10  The field is laid waste, the ground mourns; for the grain is destroyed, the new juice [of the grape] is dried up, the oil fails.

1:11  Be ashamed, O you tillers of the soil; wail, O you vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.

1:12  The vine is dried up and the fig tree fails; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple {or} quince tree, even all the trees of the field are withered, so that joy has withered {and} fled away from the sons of men.

1:13  Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar; come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my [Joel's] God, for the cereal {or} meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.

1:14  Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land in the house of the Lord, your God, and cry to the Lord [in penitent pleadings].

1:15  Alas for the day! For the day of [the judgment of] the Lord is at hand, and as a destructive tempest from the Almighty will it come.

1:16  Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?

1:17  The seed [grain] rots {and} shrivels under the clods, the garners are desolate {and} empty, the barns are in ruins because the grain has failed.

1:18  How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed {and} huddle together because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment (are forsaken and made wretched).

1:19  O Lord, to You will I cry, for the fire has devoured the pastures {and} folds of the plain {and} the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field.

1:20  Even the wild beasts of the field pant {and} cry to You, for the water brooks are dried up and fire has consumed the pastures {and} folds of the wilderness {and} the plain.