Joel 1
1
The word of YHWH that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
2
Hear this, you old men, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this been
in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
3
Tell you your children of it, and [let] your children [tell] their children, and their
children another generation.
4
That which the palmer-worm has left has the locust eaten; and that which the locust
has left has the canker-worm eaten; and that which the canker-worm has left has the
caterpillar eaten.
5
Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the
sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
6
For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number; his teeth are the
teeth of a lion, and he has the jaw-teeth of a lioness.
7
He has laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree: he has made it clean bare, and
cast it away; its branches are made white.
8
Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
9
The meal-offering and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of YHWH; the priests,
YHWH`s ministers, mourn.
10
The field is laid waste, the land mourns; for the grain is destroyed, the new wine
is dried up, the oil languishes.
11
Be confounded, O you husbandmen, wail, O you vinedressers, for the wheat and for the
barley; for the harvest of the field is perished.
12
The vine is withered, and the fig-tree languishes; the pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree
also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field are withered: for joy is
withered away from the sons of men.
13
Gird yourselves [with sackcloth], and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of
the altar; come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God: for the meal-offering
and the drink-offering are withholden from the house of your God.
14
Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the old men [and] all the inhabitants
of the land to the house of YHWH your God, and cry to YHWH.
15
Alas for the day! for the day of YHWH is at hand, and as destruction from the Almighty
shall it come.
16
Is not the food cut off before our eyes, [yea], joy and gladness from the house of
our God?
17
The seeds rot under their clods; the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken
down; for the grain is withered.
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.
19
O YHWH, to you do I cry; for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness,
and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.
20
Yea, the beasts of the field pant to you; for the water brooks are dried up, and the
fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.