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¹ The word of Jehovah that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.

² Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?

³ Tell your children of it, and [let] your children [tell] their children, and their children another generation:

⁴ that which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.

⁵ Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new 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 hath the cheek teeth of a lioness.

⁷ He hath made my vine a desolation, and barked my fig-tree; he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away: its branches are made white.

⁸ Wail like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

⁹ The oblation and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah; the priests, Jehovah's ministers, mourn.

¹⁰ The field is laid waste, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted, the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.

¹¹ Be ashamed, ye husbandmen; howl, ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley: because the harvest of the field hath perished.

¹² The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languisheth; the pomegranate-tree, the palm also and the apple-tree; all the trees of the field are withered, yea, joy is withered away from the children of men.

¹³ Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests; howl, ministers of the altar; come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the oblation and the drink-offering are withholden from the house of your God.

¹⁴ Hallow a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly, gather the elders, [and] all the inhabitants of the land to the house of Jehovah your God, and cry unto Jehovah.

¹⁵ Alas for the day! for the day of Jehovah is at hand, and as destruction from the Almighty shall it come.

¹⁶ Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?

¹⁷ The seeds are rotten under their clods, the granaries are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.

¹⁸ How do the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are bewildered, for they have no pasture; the flocks of sheep also are in suffering.

¹⁹ To thee, Jehovah, do I cry; for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned up all the trees of the field.

²⁰ The beasts of the field also cry unto thee; for the water-courses are dried, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.