Joel 1:1-12

English Standard Version

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

An Invasion of Locusts

²^(A)Hear this, ^(B)you elders;
    give ear, ^(C)all inhabitants of the land!
^(D)Has such a thing happened in your days,
    or in the days of your fathers?
³^(E)Tell your children of it,
    and let your children tell their children,
    and their children to another generation.

⁴What ^(F)the cutting locust left,
    ^(G)the swarming locust has eaten.
What the swarming locust left,
    ^(H)the hopping locust has eaten,
and what the hopping locust left,
    ^(I)the destroying locust has eaten.

⁵Awake, you drunkards, and weep,
    and ^(J)wail, all you drinkers of wine,
because of ^(K)the sweet wine,
    for it is cut off from your mouth.
⁶For ^(L)a nation has come up against my land,
    ^(M)powerful and beyond number;
^(N)its teeth are lions' teeth,
    and it has the fangs of a lioness.
⁷It has laid waste my vine
    and splintered my ^(O)fig tree;
it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down;
    their branches are made white.

⁸Lament like a virgin^[a] ^(P)wearing sackcloth
    for the bridegroom of her youth.
⁹^(Q)The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off
    from the house of the Lord.
^(R)The priests mourn,
    ^(S)the ministers of the Lord.
¹⁰The fields are destroyed,
    ^(T)the ground mourns,
because ^(U)the grain is destroyed,
    ^(V)the wine dries up,
    the oil languishes.

¹¹^(W)Be ashamed,^[b] O tillers of the soil;
    wail, O vinedressers,
for the wheat and the barley,
    ^(X)because the harvest of the field has perished.
¹²The vine dries up;
    ^(Y)the fig tree languishes.
Pomegranate, palm, and apple,
    all the trees of the field are dried up,
and ^(Z)gladness dries up
    from the children of man.