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¹ A word of YHWH that has been to Joel, son of Pethuel:² Hear this, you aged ones, || And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land, || Has this been in your days? Or in the days of your fathers?³ Concerning it talk to your sons, || And your sons to their sons, || And their sons to another generation.⁴ What is left of the palmer-worm, the locust has eaten, || And what is left of the locust, || The cankerworm has eaten, || And what is left of the cankerworm, || The caterpillar has eaten.⁵ Awake, you drunkards, and weep, || And howl all drinking wine, because of the juice, || For it has been cut off from your mouth.⁶ For a nation has come up on My land, || Strong, and there is no number, || Its teeth [are] the teeth of a lion, || And it has the jaw-teeth of a lioness.⁷ It has made My vine become a desolation, || And My fig tree become a splinter, || It has made it thoroughly bare, and has cast down, || Its branches have been made white.

⁸ Wail, as a virgin girds with sackcloth, || For the husband of her youth.⁹ Present and drink-offering have been cut off from the house of YHWH, || The priests have mourned, servants of YHWH.¹⁰ The field is spoiled, || The ground has mourned, || For the grain is spoiled, || New wine has been dried up, oil languishes.¹¹ Be ashamed, you farmers, || Howl, vinedressers, for wheat and for barley, || For the harvest of the field has perished.¹² The vine has been dried up, || And the fig tree languishes, || Pomegranate, also palm, and apple-tree, || All trees of the field have withered, || For joy has been dried up from the sons of men.¹³ Gird, and lament, you priests, || Howl, you servants of the altar, || Come in, lodge in sackcloth, servants of my God, || For present and drink-offering have been withheld from the house of your God.

¹⁴ Sanctify a fast, proclaim a restraint, || Gather [the] elderly [and] all those inhabiting the land, || [Into the] house of your God YHWH,¹⁵ And cry to YHWH, "Aah! For the day! For [the] Day of YHWH [is] near, || And it comes as destruction from [the] Almighty.¹⁶ Is food not cut off before our eyes? Joy and rejoicing from the house of our God?¹⁷ Scattered things have rotted under their clods, || Storehouses have been desolated, || Granaries have been broken down, || For the grain has withered.¹⁸ How livestock have sighed! Perplexed have been droves of oxen, || For there is no pasture for them, || Also droves of sheep have been desolated.¹⁹ To You, O YHWH, I call, || For fire has consumed lovely places of a wilderness, || And a flame has set on fire all trees of the field.²⁰ Also the livestock of the field long for You, || For dried up have been streams of water, || And fire has consumed lovely places of a wilderness!"