1The word of the LORD that went to Joel the son of Pethuel. 2Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the earth. Has this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? 3Tell your sons of it, and [let] your sons [tell] their sons, and their sons another generation. 4That which the palmerworm has left the locust has eaten; and that which the locust has left the cankerworm has eaten; and that which the cankerworm has left the caterpillar has eaten. 5Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. 6For a people has come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth [are] the teeth of a lion, and he has the molars of a [great] lion. 7He has laid my vine waste and barked my fig tree: he has made it clean bare and cast [it] away; its branches are made white. 8Lament like a young woman girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. 9The grain offering and the drink offering of the house of the LORD has perished; the priests, the LORD'S ministers, mourn. 10The field was destroyed, the land mourns; for the wheat was destroyed; the new wine was dried up, the oil perished. 11Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is lost. 12The vine has dried up, and the fig tree has perished; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, [even] all the trees of the field, have withered: therefore joy has withered away from the sons of men. 13Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the present and the drink offering is taken away from the house of your God. 14Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders [and] all the inhabitants of the earth [into] the house of the LORD your God and cry unto the LORD. 15Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD [is] at hand, and it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. 16Is not the food cut off before our eyes, the joy and the gladness from the house of our God? 17The seed has rotted under their clods, the storehouses were laid desolate, the barns were destroyed for the wheat is withered. 18How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed because they have no pasture; the flocks of sheep are condemned. 19O LORD, to thee will I cry for [the] fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and [the] flame has burned all the trees of the field. 20The beasts of the field also cry unto thee for the rivers of waters are dried up, and [the] fire has devoured the meadows of the wilderness.: