1. The word of Adonai that came to Joel the son of Pethuel:
2. Hear this, elders! Give ear, all inhabitants of the land. Has this ever happened in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
3. Tell your children about it— your children to their children, their children to another generation.
4. What the locust left, the swarming locust has eaten, and what the swarming locust left, the canker-worm has eaten, and what the canker-worm left, the caterpillar has eaten.
5. Awake, drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine— on account of sweet wine, for it is denied to your mouth!
6. For a nation has invaded my land. Vast—yes, without number! Its teeth are lion’s teeth, with jaw-teeth of a lioness.
7. He has turned my vine to waste and my fig tree to splinters. He has stripped off all the bark and flung it down— its branches are left white.
8. Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth!
9. Grain offering and drink offering are cut off from the House of Adonai. Kohanim—ministers of Adonai—mourn.
10. The field is ruined, the land grieves, for the grain has been devastated, new wine is dried up, oil languishes.
11. Be ashamed, O ploughmen; wail, O vinedressers, over wheat and over barley, for the harvest of the field is lost.
12. The vine withered, the fig tree wilted. Pomegranate, palm and apple tree —all trees of the field— are withered, for joy has withered away from the children of men.
13. Gird yourselves and weep, kohanim! Howl, ministers of the altar! Come, lie in sackcloth all night, ministers of my God. For grain and drink offering are withheld from the House of your God.
14. Consecrate a fast. Proclaim a solemn assembly. Gather elders and all living in the land to the House of Adonai your God, and cry to Adonai.
15. Ah, the day! The day of Adonai is near! As havoc from Shaddai it will come.