² Hear this, you elders,
    And listen, all you inhabitants of the land.
Has this ever happened in your days,
    or in the days of your fathers?
³ Tell your children about it,
    and have your children tell their children,
    and their children, another generation.
⁴ What the swarming locust has left, the great locust has eaten.
    What the great locust has left, the grasshopper has eaten.
    What the grasshopper has left, the caterpillar has eaten.
⁵ Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
    Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine;
    for it is cut off from your mouth.
⁶ For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number.
    His teeth are the teeth of a lion,
    and he has the fangs of a lioness.
⁷ He has laid my vine waste,
    and stripped my fig tree.
    He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away.
    Its branches are made white.
⁸ Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth! ⁹ The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from Yahweh’s house.
    The priests, Yahweh’s ministers, mourn.
¹⁰ The field is laid waste.
    The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed,
    The new wine has dried up,
    and the oil languishes.
¹¹ Be confounded, you farmers!
    Wail, you vineyard keepers;
    for the wheat and for the barley;
    for the harvest of the field has perished.
¹² The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered;
    the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree,
    even all of the trees of the field are withered;
    for joy has withered away from the sons of men.
¹³ Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests!
    Wail, you ministers of the altar.
Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God,^[b]
    for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.
¹⁴ Sanctify a fast.
    Call a solemn assembly.
    Gather the elders,
    and all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh, your God,
    and cry to Yahweh.
¹⁵ Alas for the day!
    For the day of Yahweh is at hand,
    and it will come as destruction from the Almighty.
¹⁶ Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes,
    joy and gladness from the house of our God?
¹⁷ The seeds rot under their clods.
    The granaries are laid desolate.
    The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.
¹⁸ How the animals groan!
    The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture.
    Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
¹⁹ Yahweh, I cry to you,
    For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness,
    and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.
²⁰ Yes, the animals of the field pant to you,
    for the water brooks have dried up,
    And the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.