[1] The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
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[2] Hear this, you old men, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
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[3] Tell you your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
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[4] That which the palmerworm has left has the locust eaten; and that which the locust has left has the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm has left has the caterpillar eaten.
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[5] Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and howl, all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
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[6] For a nation is come up on my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the cheek teeth of a great lion.
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[7] He has laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he has made it clean bore, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white. ¶
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[8] Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
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[9] The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD’s ministers, mourn.
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[10] The field is wasted, the land mourns; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languishes.
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[11] Be you ashamed, O you farmers; howl, O you vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.
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[12] The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languishes; 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.
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[13] Gird yourselves, and lament, you priests: howl, you ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withheld from the house of your God. ¶
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[14] Sanctify you 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 to the LORD,
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[15] Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
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[16] Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
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[17] The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.
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[18] How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
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[19] O LORD, to you will I cry: for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.
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[20] The beasts of the field cry also to you: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
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