Joel 1
1
1The Lord sent a message through Joel, son of Pethuel.
2Listen to this, elders; pay attention, everyone who lives in the land. Has anything ever happened like this before in your experience, or that of your forefathers? 3Tell your children about it, and have your children tell it to their children, and their children tell the next generation.
4What 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 destroying locusts have eaten.#1:4. Whether these terms for locusts refer to different species or different stages of the locust's life cycle is uncertain.
5Wake up, you drunks, and weep! Howl you wine drinkers, because the new wine has been suddenly taken away from your mouth! 6A nation has invaded my land: powerful and too many to count. Their teeth are like lion's teeth, their fangs like those of a lioness. 7It has ruined my grapevines and destroyed my fig trees, stripping them completely and reducing them to stumps, white and bare. 8Mourn like a bride dressed in sackcloth, mourning the death of her husband-to-be.#1:8. The image is of a woman betrothed to a man who dies before the marriage is consummated. 9Grain and wine offerings have stopped in the Temple.#1:9. Literally, “house of the Lord.” The priests who minister before the Lord are in mourning. 10The fields are devastated, the earth mourns; for the grain is ruined, the new wine dries up, the olive oil fails.
11Be ashamed, farmers, and wail in sorrow, keepers of vineyards, over the wheat and the barley, for the crops from the fields are ruined. 12The vines are shriveled, the fig trees are withered; the pomegranate, the palm, and the apricot#1:12. This fruit is more likely than apple as is usually translated. trees—all the fruit trees have dried up, and at the same time the people's happiness has also dried up.
13Dress in sackcloth,#1:13. The traditional sign of mourning. you priests, and mourn; weep, you who minister before the altar! Go and spend the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the grain and wine offerings have stopped in the Temple. 14Proclaim a fast; call a sacred assembly. Have the elders and all people of the land gather in the Temple, and cry out to your God, to the Lord. 15What a terrible day! For the day of the Lord is near, it will come as destruction from the Almighty. 16Haven't we seen our food taken away from us, right before our eyes? There is no joy and happiness in God's Temple. 17Seeds planted in the ground shrivel up; the storehouses are empty, the barns are torn down because the grain has dried up.#1:17. The Hebrew in this verse is obscure. The Greek Septuagint for the first part of the verse reads “the heifers leap at their mangers.” 18The farm animals moan with hunger. The herds of cattle wander everywhere because they can't find grass to eat; the flocks of sheep are suffering. 19To you, Lord, I cry out!#1:19. Joel makes it clear he is calling on Yahweh, while many of his fellow-countrymen would be calling on Baal, the fertility god, for help. For fire has destroyed the pastures in the wilderness; flames have burned up all the orchards. 20Even the wild animals long for you because the streams have dried up, and fire has destroyed the pastures in the wilderness.
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Dr. Jonathan Gallagher. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Version 4.3. For corrections send email to jonathangallagherfbv@gmail.com
Joel 1
1
The Devastation of the Land by Locusts
1The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethu´el.
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 caterpillar 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. 6#Rev 9.8. For 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.
15 #
Isa 13.6. Alas 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.
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King James Version 1611, spelling, punctuation and text formatting modernized by ABS in 1962; typesetting © 2010 American Bible Society.