1:1 The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
1:2 Hear 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?
1:3 Tell ye your children of it, and [let] your children [tell] their children, and their children another generation.
1:4 That 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 caterpiller eaten.
1:5 Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and wail, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
1:6 For 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.
1:7 He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath stripped it bare, and cast [it] away; its branches are made white.
1:8 Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
1:9 The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORDS ministers, mourn.
1:10 The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the grain is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.
1:11 Be ye ashamed, O ye farmers; wail, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field hath perished.
1:12 The 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.
1:13 Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: wail, 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 withheld from the house of your God.
1:14 Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders [and] all the inhabitants of the land [into] the house of the LORD your God, and cry to the LORD,
1:15 Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD [is] at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
1:16 Is not the food cut off before our eyes, [and] joy and gladness from the house of our God?
1:17 The seed hath perished under their clods, the storehouses are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the grain is withered.
1:18 How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
1:19 O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field.
1:20 The beasts of the field cry also to thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.