Joel 1:15–2:11

^15–18What a day! Doomsday!

God’s Judgment Day has come.

The Strong God has arrived.

This is serious business!

Food is just a memory at our tables,

as are joy and singing from God’s Sanctuary.

The seeds in the field are dead,

barns deserted,

Grain silos abandoned.

Who needs them? The crops have failed!

The farm animals groan—oh, how they groan!

The cattle mill around.

There’s nothing for them to eat.

Not even the sheep find anything.

^19–20God! I pray, I cry out to you!

The fields are burning up,

The country is a dust bowl,

forest and prairie fires rage unchecked.

Wild animals, dying of thirst,

look to you for a drink.

Springs and streams are dried up.

The whole country is burning up.

The Locust Army

^1–32Blow the ram’s horn trumpet in Zion!

Trumpet the alarm on my holy mountain!

Shake the country up!

God’s Judgment’s on its way—the Day’s almost here!

A black day! A Doomsday!

Clouds with no silver lining!

Like dawn light moving over the mountains,

a huge army is coming.

There’s never been anything like it

and never will be again.

Wildfire burns everything before this army

and fire licks up everything in its wake.

Before it arrives, the country is like the Garden of Eden.

When it leaves, it is Death Valley.

Nothing escapes unscathed.

^4–6The locust army seems all horses—

galloping horses, an army of horses.

It sounds like thunder

leaping on mountain ridges,

Or like the roar of wildfire

through grass and brush,

Or like an invincible army shouting for blood,

ready to fight, straining at the bit.

At the sight of this army,

the people panic, faces white with terror.

^7–11The invaders charge.

They climb barricades. Nothing stops them.

Each soldier does what he’s told,

so disciplined, so determined.

They don’t get in each other’s way.

Each one knows his job and does it.

Undaunted and fearless,

unswerving, unstoppable.

They storm the city,

swarm its defenses,

Loot the houses,

breaking down doors, smashing windows.

They arrive like an earthquake,

sweep through like a tornado.

Sun and moon turn out their lights,

stars black out.

God himself bellows in thunder

as he commands his forces.

Look at the size of that army!

And the strength of those who obey him!

God’s Judgment Day—great and terrible.

Who can possibly survive this?