(A)What the chewing [a]locust left, the (B)swarming locust has eaten;
What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten;
And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten.

Awake, you (C)drunkards, and weep;
And wail, all you drinkers of wine,
Because of the new wine,
(D)For it has been cut off from your mouth.
For (E)a nation has come up against My land,
Strong, and without number;
(F)His teeth are the teeth of a lion,
And he has the fangs of a [b]fierce lion.
He has (G)laid waste My vine,
And [c]ruined My fig tree;
He has stripped it bare and thrown it away;
Its branches are made white.

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Footnotes

  1. Joel 1:4 Exact identity of these locusts unknown
  2. Joel 1:6 Or lioness
  3. Joel 1:7 Or splintered

(A)A day of darkness and gloominess,
A day of clouds and thick darkness,
Like the morning clouds spread over the mountains.
(B)A people come, great and strong,
(C)The like of whom has never been;
Nor will there ever be any such after them,
Even for many successive generations.

A fire devours before them,
And behind them a flame burns;
The land is like (D)the Garden of Eden before them,
(E)And behind them a desolate wilderness;
Surely nothing shall escape them.
(F)Their appearance is like the appearance of horses;
And like [a]swift steeds, so they run.
(G)With a noise like chariots
Over mountaintops they leap,
Like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble,
Like a strong people set in battle array.

Before them the people writhe in pain;
(H)All faces [b]are drained of color.
They run like mighty men,
They climb the wall like men of war;
Every one marches in formation,
And they do not break (I)ranks.
They do not push one another;
Every one marches in his own [c]column.
Though they lunge between the weapons,
They are not [d]cut down.
They run to and fro in the city,
They run on the wall;
They climb into the houses,
They (J)enter at the windows (K)like a thief.

10 (L)The earth quakes before them,
The heavens tremble;
(M)The sun and moon grow dark,
And the stars diminish their brightness.
11 (N)The Lord gives voice before His army,
For His camp is very great;
(O)For strong is the One who executes His word.
For the (P)day of the Lord is great and very terrible;
(Q)Who can endure it?

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Footnotes

  1. Joel 2:4 Or horsemen
  2. Joel 2:6 LXX, Tg., Vg. gather blackness
  3. Joel 2:8 Lit. highway
  4. Joel 2:8 Halted by losses

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