Chapter 1

The Chaldees shall miserably waste the Kingdom of Juda: ℣.9 take away sacrifice by destroying the temple: and so make the land barren spiritually and temporally.

1. 1

   The word of our Lord, that was made to Joel the son of Phatuel. ancients, and harken with your ears all ye

2. 2

   Hear this ye inhabitants of the land: if this hath been done in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

3. 3

   Upon this tell you to your children, and your children to their children, and their children to an other generation.

4. 4

   The residue of the eruke hath the locust eaten, and the residue of the locust hath the bruke eaten, and the residue of the bruke hath the blast eaten.

5. 5

   Awake you that be drunk, and weep and howl all ye, that drink wine in sweetness: because it is perished from your mouth.

6. 6

   For a nation is ascended upon my land, strong & innumerable: his teeth as the teeth of a lion: & his cheek-teeth as of a lion's whelp.

7. 7

   He hath laid my vineyard into a desert, and hath pilled off the bark of my fig-tree: stripping he hath spoiled it, and cast it forth: the boughs thereof are made white.

8. 8

   Mourn as a virgin girded with sack-cloth upon the husband of her youth.

9. 9

   Sacrifice and libation is perished out of the house of our Lord: the priests our Lord's ministers mourned.

10. 10

    The region is destroyed, the ground hath mourned: because the wheat is wasted, the wine is confounded, the oil hath languished.

11. 11

    The husbandmen are confounded, the dressers of vines have howled upon the wheat, and the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished.

12. 12

    The vineyard is confounded, & the fig-tree hath languished: the pomegranate, & the palm-tree, and the apple-tree, & all the trees of the field are withered: because joy is confounded from the children of men.

13. 13

    Gird yourselves, & mourn ye priests, howl ye ministers of the altar: go in, lie in sack-cloth ye ministers of my God: because sacrifice and libation is perished out of the house of your God.

14. 14

    Sacrifice ye a fast, call an assembly, gather together the ancients, all the inhabitants of the land into the house of your God: and cry ye to our Lord:

15. 15

    A a a, for the day: because the day of our Lord is at hand, and as destruction from the mighty it shall come.

16. 16

    Why, are not the victuals perished before your eyes, joy and exultation out of the house of our God?

17. 17

    The beasts are rotted in their dung, the barns are destroyed, the store-houses are dissipated: because the wheat is confounded.

18. 18

    Why groan the beast, why lowed the flocks of the herd? Because there is no pasture for them: yea & the flocks of the cattle are perished.

19. 19

    To thee o Lord will I cry: because fire hath eaten the beautiful things of the desert, and the flame hath burnt all the trees of the region.

20. 20

    Yea and the beasts of the field, as a garden bed thirsting for a shower, have looked up to thee, because the fountains of waters are dried up, and fire hath devoured the beautiful things of the desert.