Joel 1

Locusts Eat All the Plants in Israel

1 This is the Lord's message that came to Joel, Pethuel's son.

2 You older men, listen to this! Listen, all people that live in this country.

Nothing like this has happened while you have been alive.

Nothing like this happened while your fathers were alive.

3 Tell this to your children,

and let them tell it to their children.

And let their children tell it to their own children.

4 The older locusts have eaten what the young locusts left.

The oldest locusts have eaten what the older locusts left.

Other locusts have eaten what the oldest locusts left.

5 Wake up, you drunks.

Weep, all people who drink wine!

Weep, because you will have no new wine.

Someone has taken it away from you.

Joel wants everyone to think carefully about his message. It is God's message.

The old people should notice, because this message is new and different. They have not heard it before. Old people should be wiser than young people. Old people should have learned from their lives how to be wise.

Joel wants the children to give attention to the message.

Even children who are not yet born should hear the message. That shows us that Joel's message is for everyone. It is not just for the people that Joel is speaking to. Also nowadays, God's people can give attention to Joel's message and they should do so. It is always time to give attention to God.

Joel wants people who have drunk too much wine to wake up. He wants them to listen to the message, too.

Joel wants the farmers to understand why bad things are happening. (Look at verse 11.)

Joel wants the priests to wake up. And he wants them to call the people back to God. (Look at verses 13 and 14.)

6 Locusts have come to fill my country.

They are powerful and they are very many.

They have teeth like strong animals' teeth.

Their teeth are long and dangerous.

The Hebrew in verse 6 is 'A nation has come to fill my country'. But we think that it means an enormous number of locusts.

The insects called locusts destroy plants. When there is no food, God's people will listen to him.

'My country' means God's country. His country is special to him. But he allows locusts to come and they damage it. He does that because he loves his people very much. So he does not want to let them go away from him.

7 They have broken my vines

and they have destroyed my fig trees.

They bit off all the skin from the stems.

Then they threw the bare stems away.

They have left the branches white.

8 Weep like a girl that no man ever had sex with.

The man who promised to be her husband is dead. That is why she is weeping.

9 Nobody can give food or drink for the Lord's house.

The priests, the Lord's servants,

are very, very sad.

10 The fields are no good.

They are all dry.

The new wine has dried up.

The oil has all gone.

11 Weep, you farmers! Yes, weep!

You who grow vines, weep!

Be sad about the seeds that have not become food.

Be sad because the fields are dry. And the plants have died.

12 The vine has dried up

and the fig tree is dead.

The apple trees and the other fruit trees have dried up.

All the trees have dried up.

Men have no more joy.

It has all gone.

Joel Tells People to Repent

13 You priests and servants of God, wear special clothes to show that you are sad.

Even sleep in those clothes.

Cry, you priests!

Cry, you who serve God at his altar.

Cry about the food and drink that came as gifts.

Cry, because they do not come to the house of your God any more.

The priests should be the first people to act. They are God's special servants. They should call everyone to God's house. And they should tell them to come back to God.

The priests cannot offer the usual meat and wine to God, because they have none. That is why the ceremonies in God's house have had to stop. The priests should be very, very sad about it.

14 Tell everyone to eat no food.

Instead, call all the people together to hear the Lord.

Call the older leaders.

And call all the people who live in this country.

They must come to the house of the Lord, your God.

They must cry out to the Lord there.

15 Be afraid of that day,

because the Day of the Lord is near.

It will be as if the great God wants to destroy all things.

Other prophets also speak about the Day of the Lord. Those prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Obadiah, Zephaniah, and Zechariah. So God wants everyone to think about the special day that he will cause to happen. Joel also talks about that day in Joel 1:15; 2:1-2, 31 and 3:14. Now people should know how important it is.

Many of God's people have stopped loving God. They are not trying to please him. They do not care about God's laws or about his promises. And they think that God does not notice. So Joel now warns the people that God is their ruler. The Day of the Lord is a day with great and awful troubles. God will bring that day if his people do not come back to him. That is the day that Joel is talking about. It is like the day in Revelation 6:16-17.

16 No food has come to his special house.

We saw this with our own eyes.

So the house of our God cannot make us happy any more.

The animals have no grass to eat. So there can be no meat for the priests to offer to God. The people will have no meat to eat either.

17 The seeds under the earth are dry.

The places where people stored seeds have fallen down.

Someone has broken those places up

because the seed does not grow.

The people do not use those places because there is nothing to put in them.

18 The cows make a sad noise.

They all move about

because they cannot find any grass.

Even groups of sheep are hungry.

19 I call to you, my Lord.

Fire has destroyed the grass in the fields

and it has burned up all the trees.

20 Even the wild animals are thirsty.

They want you to help them.

The rivers that had water have dried up.

Fire has destroyed the grass, even in the wild places.

Even the animals seem to know that it is a time to be sad. But God's own people do not know why bad things are happening. They seem not to care.