The Hebrew Prophets

The worde of the Lord that came to Ioel the sonne of Pethuel.

Heare ye this, O Elders, and hearken ye all inhabitantes of the land, whether such a thing hath bene in your dayes, or yet in the dayes of your fathers.

Tell you your children of it, and let your children shew to their children, and their children to another generation.

That which is left of ye palmer worme, hath the grashopper eaten, and the residue of ye grashopper hath the canker worme eaten, and the residue of the canker worme hath the caterpiller eaten.

Awake ye drunkards, and weepe, and howle all ye drinkers of wine, because of the newe wine: for it shalbe pulled from your mouth.

Yea, a nation commeth vpon my lande, mightie, and without nomber, whose teeth are like the teeth of a lyon, and he hath the iawes of a great lyon.

He maketh my vine waste, and pilleth off the barke of my figge tree: he maketh it bare, and casteth it downe: ye branches therof are made white.

Mourne like a virgine girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

The meate offring, and the drinke offring is cut off from the House of the Lord: the Priests the Lords ministers mourne.

The fielde is wasted: the lande mourneth: for the corne is destroyed: the new wine is dried vp, and the oyle is decayed.

Be ye ashamed, O husband men: howle, O ye vine dressers for the wheate, and for the barly, because the haruest of the fielde is perished.

The vine is dried vp, and the figge tree is decayed: the pomegranate tree and the palme tree, and the apple tree, euen all the trees of the fielde are withered: surely the ioy is withered away from the sonnes of men.

Girde your selues and lament, ye Priests: howle ye ministers of the altar: come, and lie all night in sackecloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meate offring, and the drinke offring is taken away from the house of your God.

Sanctifie you a fast: call a solemne assemblie: gather the Elders, and all the inhabitants of the land into the House of the Lord your God, and cry vnto the Lord,

Alas: for the day, for the day of the Lord is at hand, and it commeth as a destruction from the Almightie.

Is not the meate cut off before our eyes? and ioy, and gladnesse from the house of our God?

The seede is rotten vnder their cloddes: the garners are destroyed: the barnes are broken downe, for the corne is withered.

How did the beasts mourne! the herdes of cattel pine away, because they haue no pasture, and the flockes of sheepe are destroyed.

O Lord, to thee will I crie: for the fire hath deuoured the pastures of the wildernesse, and the flame hath burnt vp all the trees of the fielde.

The beasts of the fielde cry also vnto thee: for the riuers of waters are dried vp, and the fire hath deuoured the pastures of the wildernes.

Blowe the trumpet in Zion, and shoute in mine holy mountaine: let all the inhabitants of the lande tremble: for the day of the Lord is come: for it is at hand.

A day of darkenesse, and of blacknesse, a day of cloudes, and obscuritie, as the morning spred vpon the mountaines, so is there a great people, and a mighty: there was none like it from the beginning, neither shalbe any more after it, vnto the yeeres of many generations.

A fire deuoureth before him, and behinde him a flame burneth vp: the land is as the garden of Eden before him, and behinde him a desolate wildernesse, so that nothing shall escape him.

The beholding of him is like the sight of horses, and like the horsemen, so shall they runne.

Like the noyse of charrets in the toppes of the mountaines shall they leape, like the noyse of a flame of fire that deuoureth the stubble, and as a mightie people prepared to the battel.