8. Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the betrothed of her youth.
9. Grain offerings and drink offerings are 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 ground is dried up; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the olive oil fails.
11. Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed.
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 field—are dried up. Surely the people’s joy is withered away.
13. Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn; wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God; for the grain offerings and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.
14. Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in 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 like 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?