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1The word of the Lord that came to ⚓Joel the son of Pethuel.
The Land Laid Waste
2Hear this, you elders,
And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land!
⚓Has anything like this happened in your days,
Or even in the days of your fathers?
3⚓Tell your children about it,
Let your children tell their children,
And their children another generation.
4⚓What the chewing locust left, the ⚓swarming locust has eaten;
What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten;
And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten.
5Awake, you ⚓drunkards, and weep;
And wail, all you drinkers of wine,
Because of the new wine,
⚓For it has been cut off from your mouth.
6For ⚓a nation has come up against My land,
Strong, and without number;
⚓His teeth are the teeth of a lion,
And he has the fangs of a fierce lion.
7He has ⚓laid waste My vine,
And ruined My fig tree;
He has stripped it bare and thrown it away;
Its branches are made white.
8⚓Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth
For ⚓the husband of her youth.
9⚓The grain offering and the drink offering
Have been cut off from the house of the Lord;
The priests ⚓mourn, who minister to the Lord.
10The field is wasted,
⚓The land mourns;
For the grain is ruined,
⚓The new wine is dried up,
The oil fails.
11⚓Be ashamed, you farmers,
Wail, you vinedressers,
For the wheat and the barley;
Because the harvest of the field has perished.
12⚓The vine has dried up,
And the fig tree has withered;
The pomegranate tree,
The palm tree also,
And the apple tree—
All the trees of the field are withered;
Surely ⚓joy has withered away from the sons of men.
Mourning for the Land
13⚓Gird yourselves and lament, you priests;
Wail, you who minister before the altar;
Come, lie all night in sackcloth,
You who minister to my God;
For the grain offering and the drink offering
Are withheld from the house of your God.
14⚓Consecrate a fast,
Call ⚓a sacred assembly;
Gather the elders
And⚓all the inhabitants of the land
Into the house of the Lord your God,
And cry out to the Lord.
15⚓Alas for the day!
For ⚓the day of the Lordis at hand;
It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.
16Is not the food ⚓cut off before our eyes,
⚓Joy and gladness from the house of our God?
17The seed shrivels under the clods,
Storehouses are in shambles;
Barns are broken down,
For the grain has withered.
18How ⚓the animals groan!
The herds of cattle are restless,
Because they have no pasture;
Even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment.
19O Lord, ⚓to You I cry out;
For ⚓fire has devoured the open pastures,
And a flame has burned all the trees of the field.
20The beasts of the field also ⚓cry out to You,
For ⚓the water brooks are dried up,
And fire has devoured the open pastures.