1 The word of the LORD that went to Joel the son of Pethuel.
2 Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the earth. Has this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? 3 Tell your sons of it, and let your sons tell their sons, and their sons another generation.
4 That which the palmerworm has left the locust has eaten; and that which the locust has left the cankerworm has eaten; and that which the cankerworm has left the caterpillar has 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 people has come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the molars of a great lion. 7 He has laid my vine waste and barked my fig tree: he has made it clean bare and cast it away; its branches are made white.
8 Lament like a young woman girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. 9 The grain offering and the drink offering of the house of the LORD has perished; the priests, the LORD’s ministers, mourn. 10 The field was destroyed, the land mourns; for the wheat was destroyed; the new wine was dried up, the oil perished.
11 Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is lost. 12 The vine has dried up, and the fig tree has perished; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, have withered: therefore joy has withered away from the sons of men.