A Locust Plague Foreshadows the Day of the Lord

2  Listen to this, you elders;

pay attention, all inhabitants of the land.

Has anything like this ever happened in your whole life

or in the lifetime of your ancestors?

3  Tell your children about it,

have your children tell their children,

and their children the following generation.

4  What the gazam-locust left the ‘arbeh-locust consumed,

what the ‘arbeh-locust left the yeleq-locust consumed,

and what the yeleq-locust left the hasil-locust consumed!

5  Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!

Wail, all you wine drinkers,

because the sweet wine has been taken away from you.

6  For a nation has invaded our land.

There are so many of them they are too numerous to count.

Their teeth are like those of a lion;

they tear apart their prey like a lioness.

7  They have destroyed our vines;

they have turned our fig trees into mere splinters.

They have completely stripped off the bark and thrown them aside;

the twigs are stripped bare.