Joel 1:1-10

1The word of Adonai that came to Joel the son of Pethuel:

2Hear this, elders! Give ear, all inhabitants of the land. Has this ever happened in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?

3Tell your children about it— your children to their children, their children to another generation.

4What 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.

5Awake, drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine— on account of sweet wine, for it is denied to your mouth!

6For a nation has invaded my land. Vast—yes, without number! Its teeth are lion’s teeth, with jaw-teeth of a lioness.

7He 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.

8Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth!

9Grain offering and drink offering are cut off from the House of Adonai. Kohanim—ministers of Adonai—mourn.

10The field is ruined, the land grieves, for the grain has been devastated, new wine is dried up, oil languishes.