[1:2] Pay attention, you older people; everyone in Judah, listen. Has anything like this ever happened in your time or the time of your ancestors?
[1:3] Tell your children about it; they will tell their children, who in turn will tell the next generation.
[1:4] Swarm after swarm of locusts settled on the crops; what one swarm left, the next swarm devoured.
[1:5] Wake up and weep, you drunkards; cry, you wine-drinkers; the grapes for making new wine have been destroyed.
[1:6] An army of locusts has attacked our land; they are powerful and too many to count; their teeth are as sharp as those of a lion.
[1:7] They have destroyed our grapevines and chewed up our fig trees. They have stripped off the bark, till the branches are white.
[1:8] Cry, you people, like a young woman who mourns the death of the man she was going to marry.
[1:9] There is no grain or wine to offer in the Temple; the priests mourn because they have no offerings for the Lord.
[1:10] The fields are bare; the ground mourns because the grain is destroyed, the grapes are dried up, and the olive trees are withered.
[1:11] Grieve, you farmers; cry, you that take care of the vineyards, because the wheat, the barley, yes all the crops are destroyed.
[1:12] The grapevines and fig trees have withered; all the fruit trees have wilted and died. The joy of the people is gone.
[1:13] Put on sackcloth and weep, you priests who serve at the altar! Go into the Temple and mourn all night! There is no grain or wine to offer your God.
[1:14] Give orders for a fast; call an assembly! Gather the leaders and all the people of Judah into the Temple of the Lord your God and cry out to him!
[1:15] The day of the Lord is near, the day when the Almighty brings destruction. What terror that day will bring!
[1:16] We look on helpless as our crops are destroyed. There is no joy in the Temple of our God.
[1:17] The seeds die in the dry earth. There is no grain to be stored, and so the empty granaries are in ruins.
[1:18] The cattle are bellowing in distress because there is no pasture for them; the flocks of sheep also suffer.
[1:19] I cry out to you, Lord, because the pastures and trees are dried up, as though a fire had burned them.
[1:20] Even the wild animals cry out to you because the streams have become dry.