Joel 1 -- Old Testament -- Gospel Daily

Joel

Chapter 1

The Locust Plague and Its Desolation

The word of the Lord comes to Joel concerning a plague of locusts that has devastated the land. Joel calls the elders and all inhabitants to remember this unprecedented destruction by successive waves of insects—palmerworm, locust, cankerworm, and caterpiller—each consuming what the previous left. The plague has destroyed all crops, wine, and oil, cut off sacrificial offerings from the temple, and caused widespread lamentation among priests and farmers; the prophet calls for a solemn assembly and fast, declaring that the day of the Lord is at hand.

Locust plague devastationAgricultural destructionLamentation and mourningCall to repentanceDay of the Lord

¹The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.

²Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?

³Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.

⁴That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller 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 nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion.

⁷He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.

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

⁹The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD's ministers, mourn.

¹⁰The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.

¹¹Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.

¹²The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is 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 meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.

¹⁴Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land 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 as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.

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

¹⁷The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.

¹⁸How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

¹⁹O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field.

²⁰The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.