Joel 1:2-14 NIV

Joel 1:2-14

An Invasion of Locusts

Hear this, you elders;

listen, all who live in the land.

Has anything like this ever happened in your days

or in the days of your ancestors?

Tell it to your children,

and let your children tell it to their children,

and their children to the next generation.

What the locust swarm has left

the great locusts have eaten;

what the great locusts have left

the young locusts have eaten;

what the young locusts have left

other locusts1:4 The precise meaning of the four Hebrew words used here for locusts is uncertain. have eaten.

Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!

Wail, all you drinkers of wine;

wail because of the new wine,

for it has been snatched from your lips.

A nation has invaded my land,

a mighty army without number;

it has the teeth of a lion,

the fangs of a lioness.

It has laid waste my vines

and ruined my fig trees.

It has stripped off their bark

and thrown it away,

leaving their branches white.

Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth

grieving for the betrothed of her youth.

Grain offerings and drink offerings

are cut off from the house of the Lord.

The priests are in mourning,

those who minister before the Lord.

The fields are ruined,

the ground is dried up;

the grain is destroyed,

the new wine is dried up,

the olive oil fails.

Despair, you farmers,

wail, you vine growers;

grieve for the wheat and the barley,

because the harvest of the field is destroyed.

The vine is dried up

and the fig tree is withered;

the pomegranate, the palm and the apple1:12 Or possibly apricot tree—

all the trees of the field—are dried up.

Surely the people’s joy

is withered away.

A Call to Lamentation

Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn;

wail, you who minister before the altar.

Come, spend the night in sackcloth,

you who minister before my God;

for the grain offerings and drink offerings

are withheld from the house of your God.

Declare a holy fast;

call a sacred assembly.

Summon the elders

and all who live in the land

to the house of the Lord your God,

and cry out to the Lord.

Read More of Joel 1