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¹ The word of the Lord which came to Joel the son of Bathuel. ² Hear these words, ye elders, and hearken all ye that inhabit the land. Have such things happen in your days, or in the days of your fathers? ³ Tell your children concerning them, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. ⁴ The leavings of the caterpillar has the locust eaten, and the leavings of the locust has the palmerworm eaten, and the leavings of the palmerworm has the cankerworm eaten. ⁵ Awake, ye drunkards, from your wine, and weep: mourn, all ye that drink wine to drunkenness: for joy and gladness and removed are from your mouth. ⁶ For a strong and innumerable nation is come up against my land, their teeth are lion’s teeth, and their back teeth those of a lion’s whelp. ⁷ He has ruined my vine, and utterly broken my fig-trees: he has utterly searched my vine, and cast it down; he has peeled its branches.

⁸ Lament to me more than a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. ⁹ The meat-offering and drink-offering are removed from the house of the Lord: mourn, ye priests that serve at the altar of the Lord. ¹⁰ For the plains languish: let the land mourn, for the corn languishes; the wine is dried up, the oil becomes scarce; ¹¹ the husbandmen are consumed: mourn your property on account of the wheat and barley; for the harvest has perished from off the field. ¹² The vine is dried up, and the fig-trees are become few; the pomegranate, and palm-tree, and apple, and all trees of the field are dried up: for the sons of men have have abolished joy. ¹³ Gird yourselves with sackcloth, and lament, ye priests: mourn, ye that serve at the altar: go in, sleep in sackcloths, ye that minister to God: for the meat-offering and drink-offering are withheld from the house of your God.

¹⁴ Sanctify a fast, proclaim a solemn service, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of your God, and cry earnestly to the Lord, ¹⁵ Alas, Alas, Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is nigh, and it will come as trouble upon trouble. ¹⁶ Your meat has been destroyed before your eyes, joy and gladness from out of the house of your God. ¹⁷ The heifers have started at their mangers, the treasures are abolished, the wine-presses are broken down; for the corn is withered. ¹⁸ What shall we store up for ourselves? the herds of cattle have mourned, because they had no pasture; and the flocks of sheep have been utterly destroyed. ¹⁹ To thee, O Lord, will I cry: for fire has devoured the fair places of the wilderness, and a flame has burnt up all the trees of the field. ²⁰ And the cattle of the field have looked up to thee: for the fountains of waters have been dried up, and fire has devoured the fair places of the wilderness.