Joel 1

All 20 verses in the Clear Bible Translation. Tap a verse to compare the KJV and read what it means.

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1. 1This is the word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel.
2. 2Listen to this, you elders! Pay attention, everyone who lives in this land. Has anything like this ever happened in your lifetime, or in the lifetime of your ancestors?
3. 3Tell your children about it. Let your children tell their children, and let their children tell the next generation.
4. 4What the palmerworm left, the locust ate; what the locust left, the cankerworm ate; and what the cankerworm left, the caterpillar ate.
5. 5Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; and howl, all you drinkers of wine, because the new wine is cut off from your mouth.
6. 6A nation has invaded my land — powerful and too vast to count. Their teeth are like a lion's teeth, their fangs like those of a lioness.
7. 7They've destroyed my grapevines and stripped my fig trees bare. They've peeled off the bark and thrown it aside, leaving the branches white and exposed.
8. 8Lament like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
9. 9The grain offerings and drink offerings have been cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests who serve the LORD are in mourning.
10. 10The fields are ruined, the land mourns; the grain is destroyed, the new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes.
11. 11Be ashamed, you farmers; wail, you who tend the vineyards, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is ruined.
12. 12The grapevines have dried up and the fig trees have withered. The pomegranate, the palm, the apple tree — every tree in the field has shriveled. Joy itself has withered among the people.
13. 13Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you who serve at the altar! Come and spend the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, because the grain offerings and drink offerings are being withheld from the house of your God.
14. 14Set apart a fast as holy. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry to the LORD.
15. 15What a terrible day! The day of the LORD is near — it will come like destruction from the Almighty.
16. 16Haven't we watched our food disappear right before our eyes? Haven't joy and gladness vanished from the house of our God?
17. 17The seed is rotting under their clods, the storehouses are empty, the barns are broken down; for the grain is withered.
18. 18Listen to the animals groan! The cattle wander in confusion because there's no pasture left. Even the flocks of sheep are wasting away.
19. 19LORD, I cry out to you! Fire has consumed the open pastures, and flames have burned every tree in the field.
20. 20Even the wild animals cry out to you, because the streams have dried up and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.