1The word of the Lord which came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.
2Give ear to this, you old men, and take note, you people of the land. Has this ever been in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
3Give the story of it to your children, and let them give it to their children, and their children to another generation.
4What the worm did not make a meal of, has been taken by the locust; and what the locust did not take, has been food for the plant-worm; and what the plant-worm did not take, has been food for the field-fly.
5Come out of your sleep, you who are overcome with wine, and give yourselves to weeping; give cries of sorrow, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it has been cut off from your mouths.
6For a nation has come up over my land, strong and without number; his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the back teeth of a great lion.
7By him my vine is made waste and my fig-tree broken: he has taken all its fruit and sent it down to the earth; its branches are made white.