Joel 1:1–7

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

Locusts Attack the Land

²Elders, 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?

³Tell your children about it.

Let them tell their children.

And let their children tell it

to those who live after them.

⁴The 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.

⁵Get 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.

⁶The 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.

⁷The 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.