Joel 1:1-20
[1]This is the Lord's message to Joel son of Pethuel.
[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]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 corn 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 corn 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 corn 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]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 burnt them.
[20]Even the wild animals cry out to you because the streams have become dry.