1. The Lord spoke his word to Joel son of Pethuel:
2. Elders, listen to this message.Listen to me, all you who live in the land.Nothing like this has ever happened during your lifetimeor during your ancestors’ lifetimes.
3. Tell your children about these things,let your children tell their children,and let your grandchildren tell their children.
4. What the cutting locusts have left,the swarming locusts have eaten;what the swarming locusts have left,the hopping locusts have eaten,and what the hopping locusts have left,the destroying locusts have eaten.
5. Drunks, wake up and cry!All you people who drink wine, cry!Cry because your winehas been taken away from your mouths.
6. A powerful nation has come into my landwith too many soldiers to count.It has teeth like a lion,jaws like a female lion.
7. It has made my grapevine a wasteand made my fig tree a stump.It has stripped all the bark off my treesand left the branches white.
8. Cry as a young woman crieswhen the man she was going to marry has died.
9. There will be no more grain or drink offeringsto offer in the Temple of the Lord.Because of this, the priests,the servants of the Lord, are sad.