Read the Bible

² Pay attention, you older people;
    everyone in Judah, listen.
Has anything like this ever happened
    in your time or the time of your ancestors?
³ Tell your children about it;
    they will tell their children,
    who in turn will tell the next generation.

⁴ Swarm after swarm of locusts settled on the crops;
    what one swarm left, the next swarm devoured.
⁵ Wake up and weep, you drunkards;
    cry, you wine-drinkers;
    the grapes for making new wine have been destroyed.

^6 (a)An army of locusts has attacked our land;
    they are powerful and too many to count;
    their teeth are as sharp as those of a lion.
⁷ They have destroyed our grapevines
    and chewed up our fig trees.
They have stripped off the bark,
    till the branches are white.

⁸ Cry, you people, like a young woman who mourns the death
    of the man she was going to marry.
⁹ There is no grain or wine to offer in the Temple;
    the priests mourn because they have no offerings for the Lord.
¹⁰ The fields are bare;
the ground mourns
    because the grain is destroyed,
    the grapes are dried up,
    and the olive trees are withered.

¹¹ Grieve, you farmers;
cry, you that take care of the vineyards,
    because the wheat, the barley,
    yes all the crops are destroyed.
¹² The grapevines and fig trees have withered;
    all the fruit trees have wilted and died.
The joy of the people is gone.
¹³ Put on sackcloth and weep,
    you priests who serve at the altar!
Go into the Temple and mourn all night!
There is no grain or wine to offer your God.
¹⁴ Give orders for a fast;
    call an assembly!
Gather the leaders
    and all the people of Judah
    into the Temple of the Lord your God
    and cry out to him!
^15 (b)The day of the Lord is near,
    the day when the Almighty brings destruction.
    What terror that day will bring!

¹⁶ We look on helpless as our crops are destroyed.
    There is no joy in the Temple of our God.
¹⁷ The seeds die in the dry earth.
There is no grain to be stored,
    and so the empty granaries are in ruins.
¹⁸ The cattle are bellowing in distress
    because there is no pasture for them;
    the flocks of sheep also suffer.
¹⁹ I cry out to you, Lord,
    because the pastures and trees are dried up,
    as though a fire had burned them.
²⁰ Even the wild animals cry out to you
    because the streams have become dry.