Joel 1:1-20 NIV

Joel 1:1-20 NIV [1] The word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel. [2] Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors? [3] Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. [4] What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left other locusts have eaten. [5] Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine; wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips. [6] A nation has invaded my land, a mighty army without number; it has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness. [7] It has laid waste my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving their branches white. [8] Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the betrothed of her youth. [9] Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the LORD. [10] The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the olive oil fails. [11] Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed. [12] The vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree—all the trees of the field—are dried up. Surely the people’s joy is withered away. [13] Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn; wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God; for the grain offerings and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God. [14] Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD. [15] Alas for that day! For the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty. [16] Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes—joy and gladness from the house of our God? [17] The seeds are shriveled beneath the clods. The storehouses are in ruins, the granaries have been broken down, for the grain has dried up. [18] How the cattle moan! The herds mill about because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep are suffering. [19] To you, LORD, I call, for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness and flames have burned up all the trees of the field. [20] Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness.

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