¹ The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Phatuel.

² Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land: did this ever happen in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

³ Tell ye of this to your children, and let your children Tell their children, and their children to another generation.

⁴ That which the palmerworm hath left, the locust hath eaten: and that which the locust hath left, the bruchus hath eaten: and that which the bruchus hath left, the mildew hath destroyed.

⁵ Awake, ye that are drunk, and weep, and mourn all ye that take delight in drinking sweet wine: for it is cut off from your mouth.

⁶ For a nation is come up upon my land, strong and without number: his teeth are like the teeth of a lion: and his cheek teeth as of a lion's whelp.

⁷ He hath laid my vineyard waste, and hath pilled off the bark of my fig tree: he hath stripped it bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.

⁸ Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

⁹ Sacrifice and libation is cut off from the house of the Lord: the priests, the Lord's ministers, have mourned:

¹⁰ The country is destroyed, the ground hath mourned: for the corn is wasted, the wine is confounded, the oil hath languished.

¹¹ The husbandmen are ashamed, the vinedressers have howled for the wheat, and for the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished.

¹² The vineyard is confounded, and the fig tree hath languished: the pomegranate tree, and the palm tree, and the apple tree, and all the trees of the field are withered: because joy is withdrawn from the children of men.

¹³ Gird yourselves, and lament, O ye priests, howl, ye ministers of the altars: go in, lie in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: because sacrifice and libation is cut off from the house of your God.

¹⁴ Sanctify ye a fast, call an assembly; gather together the ancients, all the inhabitants of the land into the house of your God: and cry ye to the Lord:

¹⁵ Ah, ah, ah, for the day: because the day of the Lord is at hand, and it shall come like destruction from the mighty.

¹⁶ Is not your food cut off before your eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?

¹⁷ The beasts have rotted in their dung, the barns are destroyed, the storehouses are broken down: because the corn is confounded.

¹⁸ Why did the beast groan, Why did the herds of cattle low? because there is no pasture for them: yea, and the flocks of sheep are perished.

¹⁹ To thee, 0 Lord, will I cry: because fire hath devoured the beautiful places of the wilderness, and the flame hath burnt all the trees of the country.

²⁰ Yea and the beasts of the field have looked up to thee, as a garden bed that thirsteth after rain, for the springs of waters are dried up, and fire hath devoured the beautiful places of the wilderness.

¹ Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel, for the Lord shall enter into judgment with the inhabitants of the land: for there is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God in the land.

² Cursing, and lying, and killing, and theft, and adultery have overflowed, and blood hath touched blood.

³ Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth in it shall languish with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of the air: yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be gathered together.

⁴ But yet let not any man judge: and let not a man be rebuked: for thy people are as they that contradict the priest.

⁵ And thou shalt fall to day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee: in the night I have made thy mother to be silent.

⁶ My people have been silent, because they had no knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will reject thee, that thou shalt not do the office of priesthood to me: and thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children.

⁷ According to the multitude of them so have they sinned against me: I will change their glory into shame.

⁸ They shall eat the sins of my people, and shall lift up their souls to their iniquity.

⁹ And there shall be like people like priest: and I will visit their ways upon them, and I will repay them their devices.

¹⁰ And they shall eat and shall not be filled: they have committed fornication, and have not ceased: because they have forsaken the Lord in not observing his law.

¹¹ Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the understanding.

¹² My people have consulted their stocks, and their staff hath declared unto them: for the spirit of fornication hath deceived them, and they have committed fornication against their God.

¹³ They offered sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burnt incense upon the hills: under the oak, and the poplar, and the turpentine tree, because the shadow thereof was good: therefore shall your daughters commit fornication, and your spouses shall be adulteresses.

¹⁴ I will not visit upon your daughters when they shell commit fornication, and upon your spouses when they shall commit adultery: because themselves conversed with harlots, and offered sacrifice with the effeminate, and the people that doth not understand shall be beaten.

¹⁵ If thou play the harlot, O Israel, at least let not Juda offend: and go ye not into Galgal, and come not up into Bethaven, and do not swear: The Lord liveth.

¹⁶ For Israel hath gone astray like a wanton heifer: now will the Lord feed them, as a lamb in a spacious place.

¹⁷ Ephraim is a partaker with idols, let him alone.

¹⁸ Their banquet is separated, they have gone astray by fornication: they that should have protected them have loved to bring shame upon them.

¹⁹ The wind hath bound them up in its wings, and they shall be confounded because of their sacrifices.