Joel 1:1-10

1This is the Lord’s message that was given to Joel the son of Pethuel:

2Listen to this, you elders; pay attention, all inhabitants of the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your whole life or in the lifetime of your ancestors?

3Tell your children about it, have your children tell their children, and their children the following generation.

4What the gazam-locust left the ‘arbeh-locust consumed, what the ‘arbeh-locust left the yeleq-locust consumed, and what the yeleq-locust left the hasil-locust consumed!

5Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you wine drinkers, because the sweet wine has been taken away from you.

6For a nation has invaded our land. There are so many of them they are too numerous to count. Their teeth are like those of a lion; they tear apart their prey like a lioness.

7They have destroyed our vines; they have turned our fig trees into mere splinters. They have completely stripped off the bark and thrown them aside; the twigs are stripped bare.

8Wail like a young virgin clothed in sackcloth, lamenting the death of her husband-to-be.

9No one brings grain offerings or drink offerings to the temple of the Lord anymore. So the priests, those who serve the Lord, are in mourning.

10The crops of the fields have been destroyed. The ground is in mourning because the grain has perished. The fresh wine has dried up; the olive oil languishes.