| Chapter 1 |
1 | The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
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2 | Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
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3 | Tell ye your children of it, and [let] your children [tell] their children, and their children another generation.
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4 | That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.
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5 | Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
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6 | For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth [are] the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion.
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7 | He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast [it] away; the branches thereof are made white.
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8 | Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
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9 | The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD'S ministers, mourn.
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10 | The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.
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11 | Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.
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12 | The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, [even] all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men.
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13 | Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.
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14 | Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders [and] all the inhabitants of the land [into] the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD,
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15 | Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD [is] at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
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16 | Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, [yea], joy and gladness from the house of our God?
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17 | The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.
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18 | How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
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19 | O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field.
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20 | The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
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