Joel Chapter 1
Conversational Yahveh Covenant
1 A Message from Yahveh to Joel Ben-Pethuel
Mourning over a Locust Invasion
2 Listen to this, elders;
pay attention, everybody in the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your lifetime
or your ancestors’ lifetime?
3 Tell your descendants about it;
they need to tell their descendants, and so on.
Joel 1:1-3
4 What the cutting locusts left
the swarming locusts have eaten.
What the swarming locusts left
the hopping locusts have eaten.
What the hopping locusts left
the stripping locusts have eaten.
5 Wake up, you drunks, and cry;
wail, wine drinkers,
for the sweet wine you can’t find anymore.
6 A nation has invaded my land,
powerful and without number.
Its teeth are like a lion’s teeth;
it has fangs like a lioness.
7 It’s destroyed my grapevines
and ruined my fig trees.
It’s stripped off their bark and thrown it away,
so their branches are bare and white.
Joel 1:4-7
8 Wail like a virgin wearing burlap
for her young groom.
9 The grain offering and liquid offering have stopped
in Yahveh’s Temple.
The priests, Yahveh’s ministers, mourn.
10 The fields are ruined, the land is bare
because the grain has been destroyed,
the new wine has dried up,
the fresh oil has failed.
11 Despair, farmers; wail, vinedressers,
for the wheat and barley;
the harvest is ruined.
12 The grapevines have shriveled up, the fig trees have withered;
the pomegranate, palm, and apple trees as well.
The fruit trees in the orchard have dried up,
the joy among the people too.
Joel 1:8-12
A Call to Repentance
13 Put on burlap and chant a dirge, priests;
wail, ministers at the altar!
Come, spend the night in burlap, ministers of God,
because the grain offerings and liquid offerings
have stopped in his Temple.
14 Consecrate a fast, declare a solemn assembly;
gather the elders and the people to Yahveh’s Temple,
and cry out to him.
15 Dread the day!
The day of Yahveh is upon us,
a day of destruction that’s coming from the Almighty.
16 Hasn’t food disappeared in front of us,
and happiness left the Temple?
17 Seeds shrivel under the clods;
barns stand empty;
granaries are abandoned
because the crops have failed.
Joel 1:13-17
18 The cattle are bawling!
Herds are wandering aimlessly
because there’s no pasture;
flocks of sheep are bleating in misery.
19 I’m calling out to you, Yahveh,
because fire has burned off the open range;
flames have burned up the trees in the fields.
20 Even the wild animals pant for you
because the streams have dried up
and fire has scorched the pastures.
Joel 1:18-20