Joel 1:1–2:27

¹The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:

²Hear this, you aged men,

give ear, all inhabitants of the land!

Has such a thing happened in your days,

or in the days of your fathers?

³Tell your children of it,

and let your children tell their children,

and their children another generation.

⁴What the cutting locust left,

the swarming locust has eaten.

What the swarming locust left,

the hopping locust has eaten,

and what the hopping locust left,

the destroying locust has eaten.

⁵Awake, you drunkards, and weep;

and wail, all you drinkers of wine,

because of the sweet wine,

for it is cut off from your mouth.

⁶For a nation has come up against my land,

powerful and without number;

its teeth are lions’ teeth,

and it has the fangs of a lioness.

⁷It has laid waste my vines,

and splintered my fig trees;

it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down;

their branches are made white.

⁸Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth

for the bridegroom of her youth.

⁹The cereal offering and the drink offering are cut off

from the house of the Lord.

The priests mourn,

the ministers of the Lord.

¹⁰The fields are laid waste,

the ground mourns;

because the grain is destroyed,

the wine fails,

the oil languishes.

¹¹Be confounded, O tillers of the soil,

wail, O vinedressers,

for the wheat and the barley;

because the harvest of the field has perished.

¹²The vine withers,

the fig tree languishes.

Pomegranate, palm, and apple,

all the trees of the field are withered;

and gladness fails

from the sons of men.

¹³Gird on sackcloth and lament, O priests,

wail, O ministers of the altar.

Go in, pass the night in sackcloth,

O ministers of my God!

Because cereal offering and drink offering

are withheld from the house of your God.

¹⁴Sanctify a fast,

call a solemn assembly.

Gather the elders

and all the inhabitants of the land

to the house of the Lord your God;

and cry to the Lord.

¹⁵Alas for the day!

For the day of the Lord is near,

and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.

¹⁶Is not the food cut off

before our eyes,

joy and gladness

from the house of our God?

¹⁷The seed shrivels under the clods,^a

the storehouses are desolate;

the granaries are ruined

because the grain has failed.

¹⁸How the beasts groan!

The herds of cattle are perplexed

because there is no pasture for them;

even the flocks of sheep are dismayed.

¹⁹Unto thee, O Lord, I cry.

For fire has devoured

the pastures of the wilderness,

and flame has burned

all the trees of the field.

²⁰Even the wild beasts cry to thee

because the water brooks are dried up,

and fire has devoured

the pastures of the wilderness.

Chapter 2

¹Blow the trumpet in Zion;

sound the alarm on my holy mountain!

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,

for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near,

²a day of darkness and gloom,

a day of clouds and thick darkness!

Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains

a great and powerful people;

their like has never been from of old,

nor will be again after them

through the years of all generations.

³Fire devours before them,

and behind them a flame burns.

The land is like the garden of Eden before them,

but after them a desolate wilderness,

and nothing escapes them.

⁴Their appearance is like the appearance of horses,

and like war horses they run.

⁵As with the rumbling of chariots,

they leap on the tops of the mountains,

like the crackling of a flame of fire

devouring the stubble,

like a powerful army

drawn up for battle.

⁶Before them peoples are in anguish,

all faces grow pale.

⁷Like warriors they charge,

like soldiers they scale the wall.

They march each on his way,

they do not swerve from their paths.

⁸They do not jostle one another,

each marches in his path;

they burst through the weapons

and are not halted.

⁹They leap upon the city,

they run upon the walls;

they climb up into the houses,

they enter through the windows like a thief.

¹⁰The earth quakes before them,

the heavens tremble.

The sun and the moon are darkened,

and the stars withdraw their shining.

¹¹The Lord utters his voice

before his army,

for his host is exceedingly great;

he that executes his word is powerful.

For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible;

who can endure it?

¹²“Yet even now,” says the Lord,

“return to me with all your heart,

with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

¹³and rend your hearts and not your garments.”

Return to the Lord, your God,

for he is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,

and repents of evil.

¹⁴Who knows whether he will not turn and repent,

and leave a blessing behind him,

a cereal offering and a drink offering

for the Lord, your God?

¹⁵Blow the trumpet in Zion;

sanctify a fast;

call a solemn assembly;

¹⁶gather the people.

Sanctify the congregation;

assemble the elders;

gather the children,

even nursing infants.

Let the bridegroom leave his room,

and the bride her chamber.

¹⁷Between the vestibule and the altar

let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep

and say, “Spare thy people, O Lord,

and make not thy heritage a reproach,

a byword among the nations.

Why should they say among the peoples,

‘Where is their God?’ ”

¹⁸Then the Lord became jealous for his land,

and had pity on his people.

¹⁹The Lord answered and said to his people,

“Behold, I am sending to you

grain, wine, and oil,

and you will be satisfied;

and I will no more make you

a reproach among the nations.

²⁰“I will remove the northerner far from you,

and drive him into a parched and desolate land,

his front into the eastern sea,

and his rear into the western sea;

the stench and foul smell of him will rise,

for he has done great things.

²¹“Fear not, O land;

be glad and rejoice,

for the Lord has done great things!

²²Fear not, you beasts of the field,

for the pastures of the wilderness are green;

the tree bears its fruit,

the fig tree and vine give their full yield.

²³“Be glad, O sons of Zion,

and rejoice in the Lord, your God;

for he has given the early rain for your vindication,

he has poured down for you abundant rain,

the early and the latter rain, as before.

²⁴“The threshing floors shall be full of grain,

the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

²⁵I will restore to you the years

which the swarming locust has eaten,

the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,

my great army, which I sent among you.

²⁶“You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,

and praise the name of the Lord your God,

who has dealt wondrously with you.

And my people shall never again be put to shame.

²⁷You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,

and that I, the Lord, am your God and there is none else.

And my people shall never again

be put to shame.