Joel 1 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

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

Listen to this, you elders. Everyone living in the land, hear me. Has anything like this happened while you were alive, or while your fathers were alive?

Tell your children about it, and let your children tell theirs, and their children the generation after them.

What the shearer left, the swarm ate. What the swarm left, the hopper ate. What the hopper left, the stripper ate.

Wake up, you drunks, and cry. Wail, all of you who drink wine, because the sweet wine is cut off from your mouth.

A nation has come up against my land, strong, past counting. Its teeth are a lion's teeth. It has the fangs of a lioness.

It has made my vine a waste and my fig tree splinters. It stripped the bark clean and threw it down. The branches are left white.

Grieve like a young woman in rough sackcloth, mourning the man she was promised to as a girl.

Grain offering and drink offering are cut off from the house of Yahweh. The priests are in mourning, the ones who serve Yahweh.

The field is ruined, the ground is in mourning, because the grain is ruined, the new wine has dried up, the fresh oil has failed.

Stand there ashamed, you farmers. Wail, you who keep vineyards, over the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is lost.

The vine has dried up and the fig tree droops. Pomegranate, palm, and apple, every tree in the field is dry. Gladness has dried up and gone from the people.

Put on sackcloth and beat your chests, you priests. Wail, you who serve at the altar. Come and spend the night in sackcloth, you who serve my God, because the grain offering and the drink offering are held back from the house of your God.

Declare a fast, a day kept for God. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and everyone living in the land to the house of Yahweh your God, and cry out to Yahweh.

Cry out for that day. The day of Yahweh is close, and it comes as ruin from Shaddai, the Overpowering One.

Hasn't the food been cut off in front of our own eyes, and joy and gladness from the house of our God?

The seeds shrivel under their shovels. The storehouses are empty, the barns are pulled down, because the grain has dried up.

How the cattle groan. The herds mill about with nowhere to go, because there is no pasture for them. Even the flocks of sheep are suffering for it.

To you, Yahweh, I call, because fire has eaten the open pastures and flame has burned every tree in the field.

Even the wild animals pant for you, because the streams of water have dried up and fire has eaten the pastures of the wilderness.