¹ The Word of Yahweh that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.

² Hear this, you elders, And listen, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this ever happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

³ Tell your children about it, and have your children Tell their children, and their children, another generation.

⁴ What the swarming locust has left, the great locust has eaten. What the great locust has left, the grasshopper has eaten. What the grasshopper has left, the caterpillar has eaten.

⁵ Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.

⁶ For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a lioness.

⁷ He has laid my vine waste, and stripped my fig tree. He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away. Its branches are made white.

⁸ Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth!

⁹ The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from Yahweh's house. The priests, Yahweh's ministers, mourn.

¹⁰ The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, The new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes.

¹¹ Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished.

¹² The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the sons of men.

¹³ Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God's house.

¹⁴ Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders, and all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh, your God, and cry to Yahweh.

¹⁵ Alas for the day! For the day of Yahweh is at hand, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

¹⁶ Isn't the food cut off before our eyes; joy and gladness from the house of our God?

¹⁷ The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.

¹⁸ How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

¹⁹ Yahweh, I cry to you, For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.

²⁰ Yes, the animals of the field pant to you, for the water brooks have dried up, And the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

¹ The fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from the sky which had fallen to the earth. The key to the pit of the abyss was given to him.

² He opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke from a burning furnace. The sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke from the pit.

³ Then out of the smoke came forth locusts on the earth, and power was given to them, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

⁴ They were told that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those people who don't have God's seal on their foreheads.

⁵ They were given power not to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion, when it strikes a person.

⁶ In those days people will seek death, and will in no way find it. They will desire to die, and death will flee from them.

⁷ The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared for war. On their heads were something like golden crowns, and their faces were like people's faces.

⁸ They had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like those of lions.

⁹ They had breastplates, like breastplates of iron. The sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, or of many horses rushing to war.

¹⁰ They have tails like those of scorpions, and stings. In their tails they have power to harm men for five months.

¹¹ They have over them as king the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is "Abaddon," but in Greek, he has the name "Apollyon."

¹² The first woe is past. Behold, there are still two woes coming after this.

¹³ The sixth angel sounded. I heard a voice from the horns of the golden altar which is before God,

¹⁴ saying to the sixth angel who had one trumpet, "Free the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates!"

¹⁵ The four angels were freed who had been prepared for that hour and day and month and year, so that they might kill one third of mankind.

¹⁶ The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million. I heard the number of them.

¹⁷ Thus I saw the horses in the vision, and those who sat on them, having breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow; and the heads of lions. Out of their mouths proceed fire, smoke, and sulfur.

¹⁸ By these three plagues were one third of mankind killed: by the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur, which proceeded out of their mouths.

¹⁹ For the power of the horses is in their mouths, and in their tails. For their tails are like serpents, and have heads, and with them they harm.

²⁰ The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, didn't repent of the works of their hands, that they wouldn't worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood; which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk.

²¹ They didn't repent of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their sexual immorality, nor of their thefts.