A message came to Joel from the Lord. He was the son of Pethuel. Here is what Joel said.

Locusts Attack the Land

2 Elders, listen to me.

Pay attention, all you who live in the land.

Has anything like this ever happened in your whole life?

Did it ever happen to your people

who lived long ago?

3 Tell your children about it.

Let them tell their children.

And let their children tell it

to those who live after them.

4 The giant locusts have eaten

what the common locusts have left.

The young locusts have eaten

what the giant locusts have left.

And other locusts have eaten

what the young locusts have left.

5 Get up and sob, you people who drink too much!

Cry, all you who drink wine!

Cry because the fresh wine

has been taken away from you.

6 The locusts are like an army

that has marched into our land.

There are so many of them

they can’t even be counted.

Their teeth are as sharp as a lion’s teeth.

They are like the fangs of a female lion.

7 The locusts have completely destroyed our vines.

They have wiped out our fig trees.

They’ve stripped off the bark and thrown it away.

They’ve left the branches bare.

8 My people, sob like a virgin

who is dressed in black clothes.

She is sad because she has lost

the young man she was going to marry.

9 No one brings grain offerings and drink offerings

to the Lord’s house anymore.

So the priests who serve the Lord

are filled with sorrow.

10 Our fields are wiped out.

The ground is dried up.

The grain is destroyed.

The fresh wine is gone.

And there isn’t any more olive oil.

11 Farmers, be sad.

Cry, you who grow vines.

Sob because the wheat and barley are gone.

The crops in the fields are destroyed.

12 The vines and fig trees are dried up.

The pomegranate, palm and apple trees

don’t have any fruit on them.

In fact, all of the trees in the fields are dried up.

And my people’s joy has faded away.