The Reading
Joel 1
The word of Yahweh that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

Hear this, O elders,
and give ear, all the inhabitants of the land.
Has this happened in your days?
Or the days of your ancestors?
Tell it to your children,
and your children to their children,
and their children to the following generation.
What the cutting locust left,
the swarming locust has eaten.
What the swarming locust left,
the hopping locust has eaten.
And what the hopping locust left,
the destroying locust has eaten.
Wake up, drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all drinkers of wine, over the new wine,
for it is cut off from your mouth.
Because a nation has invaded my land,
strong and beyond counting.
Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,
and its fangs are those of a lioness.
It has made my vine a desolation,
and my fig tree a completely splintered stump.
It has stripped them bare and thrown them down;
their branches have turned white.
Lament like a virgin girded in sackcloth
for the husband of her youth.
The offering and libation are withheld
from the house of Yahweh.
The priests mourn,
the ministers of Yahweh.
The field is destroyed;
the earth mourns
because the grain is destroyed,
the new wine dries up,
the olive oil languishes.
Be ashamed, farmers;
Wail, vinedressers,
over the wheat and over the barley,
because the harvest of the field is ruined.
The vine withers
and the fig tree droops.
The pomegranate tree, and also the palm tree, the apple tree
—all the trees of the field—are dried up.
Indeed, joy is dried up
among the sons of men.
Gird yourselves and lament, O priests!
Wail, O ministers of the altar!
Come spend the night in sackcloth,
O ministers of my God,
because offering and libation
are withheld from the house of your God.
Solemnize a fast!
Call an assembly!
Gather the elders,
all of the inhabitants of the land
in the house of Yahweh your God,
and cry out to Yahweh.
Ah! For the day!
For the day of Yahweh is near.
It will come like destruction from Shaddai.
Is not food cut off
before our eyes,
from the house of our God,
joy and gladness?
The seeds shrivel under their clods;
the storehouses are desolate.
The grain storage places are destroyed
because grain has dried out.
How the beasts groan;
the herds of cattle wander around
because there is no pasture for them;
the flocks of sheep are in distress.
To you, O Yahweh, I cry out,
because fire has devoured
the pastures of the desert,
and flames burned
all the trees of the field.
Also, the beasts of the field
long for you,
because the courses of water
are dried up,
and fire has devoured
the pastures of the desert.
Joel 2
Blow the trumpet in Zion,
and sound the alarm on my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
for the day of Yahweh is coming
—it is indeed near.
A day of darkness and gloom,
a day of cloud and thick darkness,
like the dawn spreads on the mountains,
a great and strong army!
There has been nothing like it from old,
and after it nothing will be again for generations to come.
Before them a fire devours,
and behind them a flame burns.
Like the garden of Eden is the land before them,
and after them it is like a desolate desert,
and nothing can escape them.
Like the appearance of horses is their appearance,
and like horsemen they run;
like the sound of chariots on the tops of the mountains, they leap about;
like the sound of a flame of fire
devouring stubble;
like a strong army arranged
in rows for battle.
From before them nations writhe,
all faces turn pale.
They run like mighty warriors,
they scale the wall like men of war;
each goes on its own way,
and they do not swerve from their paths.
They do not jostle one another;
each goes on its own trail;
and through the falling weapons,
they are not halted.
In the city they rush forth;
on the walls they run.
Into the houses they climb up;
through the windows
they enter like a thief.