25 I looked, and there were no people;
    every bird in the sky had flown away.(A)

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10 I will weep and wail for the mountains
    and take up a lament concerning the wilderness grasslands.(A)
They are desolate and untraveled,
    and the lowing of cattle is not heard.
The birds(B) have all fled
    and the animals are gone.

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Because of this the land dries up,(A)
    and all who live in it waste away;(B)
the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
    and the fish in the sea are swept away.(C)

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10 The fields are ruined,
    the ground is dried up;(A)
the grain is destroyed,
    the new wine(B) is dried up,
    the olive oil fails.(C)

11 Despair, you farmers,(D)
    wail, you vine growers;
grieve for the wheat and the barley,(E)
    because the harvest of the field is destroyed.(F)
12 The vine is dried up
    and the fig tree is withered;(G)
the pomegranate,(H) the palm and the apple[a] tree—
    all the trees of the field—are dried up.(I)
Surely the people’s joy
    is withered away.

A Call to Lamentation

13 Put on sackcloth,(J) you priests, and mourn;
    wail, you who minister(K) before the altar.
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
    you who minister before my God;
for the grain offerings and drink offerings(L)
    are withheld from the house of your God.
14 Declare a holy fast;(M)
    call a sacred assembly.
Summon the elders
    and all who live in the land(N)
to the house of the Lord your God,
    and cry out(O) to the Lord.(P)

15 Alas for that(Q) day!
    For the day of the Lord(R) is near;
    it will come like destruction from the Almighty.[b](S)

16 Has not the food been cut off(T)
    before our very eyes—
joy and gladness(U)
    from the house of our God?(V)
17 The seeds are shriveled
    beneath the clods.[c](W)
The storehouses are in ruins,
    the granaries have been broken down,
    for the grain has dried up.

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Footnotes

  1. Joel 1:12 Or possibly apricot
  2. Joel 1:15 Hebrew Shaddai
  3. Joel 1:17 The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.

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