A Lament Over the Land

• 2 Hear this, O elders,
  • and give ear, all the inhabitants of the land.
• Has this happened in your days?
  • Or the days of your ancestors?
• 3 Tell it to your children,
  • and your children to their children,
    • and their children to the following generation.
• 4 What the cutting locust left,
  • the swarming locust has eaten.
• What the swarming locust left,
  • the hopping locust has eaten.
• And what the hopping locust left,
  • the destroying locust has eaten.
• 5 Wake up, drunkards, and weep!
• Wail, all drinkers of wine, over the new wine,
  • for it is cut off from your mouth.
• 6 Because a nation has invaded[fn] my land,
  • strong and beyond counting .[fn]
• Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,
  • and its fangs are those of a lioness.
• 7 It has made my vine a desolation,
  • and my fig tree a completely splintered stump.
• It has stripped them bare and thrown them down;
  • their branches have turned white.
• 8 Lament like a virgin girded in sackcloth
  • for the husband of her youth.
• 9 The offering and libation are withheld
  • from the house[fn] of Yahweh.
• The priests mourn,
  • the ministers of Yahweh.
• 10 The field is destroyed;
  • the earth mourns
• because the grain is destroyed,
  • the new wine dries up,
    • the olive oil languishes.
• 11 Be ashamed, farmers;
  • Wail, vinedressers,
• over the wheat and over the barley,
  • because the harvest of the field is ruined.
• 12 The vine withers
  • and the fig tree droops.
• The pomegranate tree, and also the palm tree, the apple tree
  • —all the trees of the field—are dried up.
• Indeed, joy is dried up
  • among the sons of men.
• 13 Gird yourselves and lament, O priests!
  • Wail, O ministers of the altar!
• Come spend the night in sackcloth,
  • O ministers of my God,
• because offering and libation
  • are withheld from the house of your God.
• 14 Solemnize a fast!
  • Call an assembly!
• Gather the elders,
  • all of the inhabitants of the land
• in the house of Yahweh your God,
  • and cry out to Yahweh.
• 15 Ah! For the day!
• For the day of Yahweh is near.
  • It will come like destruction from Shaddai.[fn]
• 16 Is not food cut off
  • before our eyes,
• from the house of our God,
  • joy and gladness?
• 17 The seeds shrivel under their clods;
  • the storehouses are desolate.
• The grain storage places are destroyed
  • because grain has dried out.
• 18 How the beasts[fn] groan;
  • the herds of cattle wander around
• because there is no pasture for them;
  • the flocks of sheep are in distress.
• 19 To you, O Yahweh, I cry out,
• because fire has devoured
  • the pastures of the desert,
• and flames[fn] burned
  • all the trees of the field.
• 20 Also, the beasts of the field
  • long for you,
• because the courses of water
  • are dried up,
• and fire has devoured
  • the pastures of the desert.