Read New International Version, 2011 Joel 1 Bible Online

Joel 1 - New International Version, 2011 bible

Joel 1

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

²Hear 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?

³Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.

⁴What 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 [1] have eaten.

⁵Wake 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.

⁶A nation has invaded my land, a mighty army without number; it has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness.

⁷It has laid waste my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving their branches white.

⁸Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the betrothed of her youth.

⁹Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the LORD.

¹⁰The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the olive oil fails.

¹¹Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed.

¹²The vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the palm and the apple [2] tree — all the trees of the field — are dried up. Surely the people’s joy is withered away.

¹³Put 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.

¹⁴Declare 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.

¹⁵Alas for that day! For the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty. [3]

¹⁶Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes — joy and gladness from the house of our God?

¹⁷The seeds are shriveled beneath the clods. [4] The storehouses are in ruins, the granaries have been broken down, for the grain has dried up.

¹⁸How the cattle moan! The herds mill about because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

¹⁹To you, LORD, I call, for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.

²⁰Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness.