﻿Joel.
Chapter 1.
The word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel. 
Hear this, elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this happened in your days or in the days of your fathers? 
Tell your children about it, and let your children tell their children, and their children the next generation. 
What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust ate; what the swarming locust left, the hopping locust ate; and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust ate. 
Wake up, drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you wine drinkers, over the sweet wine, for it has been cut off from your mouths. 
For a nation has come up against my land, mighty and beyond counting. Its teeth are a lion’s teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. 
It has devastated my vine and splintered my fig tree. It has stripped it completely bare and cast it away; its branches have turned white. 
Lament like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth. 
Grain offerings and drink offerings have ceased in the house of the LORD. The priests who minister to the LORD mourn. 
The field is devastated; the ground mourns, for the grain is destroyed, the new wine has dried up, and the oil has failed. 
Be ashamed, farmers; wail, vinedressers, over the wheat and barley, for the harvest of the field has perished. 
The vine has dried up, and the fig tree has withered. Pomegranate, palm, and apple—all the trees of the field have dried up. Indeed, joy has withered away from mankind. 
Put on sackcloth and mourn, priests; wail, ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, ministers of my God, for grain offerings and drink offerings have been withheld from the house of your God. 
Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD. 
Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is near, and it will come like destruction from the Almighty. 
Has not food been cut off before our eyes, and joy and gladness from the house of our God? 
The seeds have shriveled beneath their clods. The storehouses are desolate; the granaries are torn down, for the grain has dried up. 
How the livestock groan! The herds of cattle wander in confusion because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep suffer. 
To you, LORD, I cry out, for fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has scorched all the trees of the field. 
Even the wild animals pant for you, for the watercourses have dried up, and fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness. 
