1:1 The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel.
1:2 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?
1:3 Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.
1:4 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 locusts* have eaten. / *The precise meaning of the four Hebrew words used here for locusts is uncertain.
1:5 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.
1:6 A nation has invaded my land, a mighty army without number; it has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness.
1:7 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.
1:8 Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the betrothed of her youth.
1:9 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.
1:10 The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the olive oil fails.
1:11 Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed.
1:12 The vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the palm and the apple* tree - all the trees of the field - are dried up. Surely the people’s joy is withered away. / *Or possibly apricot
1:13 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.
1:14 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.
1:15 Alas for that day! For the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.* / *Hebrew Shaddai
1:16 Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes - joy and gladness from the house of our God?
1:17 The seeds are shriveled beneath the clods.* The storehouses are in ruins, the granaries have been broken down, for the grain has dried up. / *The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.
1:18 How the cattle moan! The herds mill about because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep are suffering.
1:19 To you, Lord, I call, for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.
1:20 Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness.