2Listen to this, you elders!

Pay attention, all who dwell in the land!

Has anything like this ever happened in your lifetime,

or in the lifetime of your ancestors?

3Report it to your children.

Have your children report it to their children,

and their children to the next generation.

4What the cutter left,

the swarming locust has devoured;

What the swarming locust left,

the hopper has devoured;

What the hopper left,

the consuming locust* has devoured.

5Wake up, you drunkards,* and weep;

wail, all you wine drinkers,

Over the new wine,

taken away from your mouths.

6For a nation* invaded my land,

powerful and past counting,

With teeth like a lion’s,

fangs like those of a lioness.

7It has stripped bare my vines,

splintered my fig tree,

Shearing off its bark and throwing it away,

until its branches turn white.

8Wail like a young woman* dressed in sackcloth

for the husband of her youth.

9Grain offering and libation are cut off

from the house of theLord;

In mourning are the priests,

the ministers of theLord.

10The field is devastated;

the farmland mourns,*

Because the grain is devastated,

the wine has dried up,

the oil has failed.

11Be appalled, you farmers!

wail, you vinedressers,

Over the wheat and the barley,

because the harvest in the field is ruined.

12The vine has dried up,

the fig tree has withered;

The pomegranate, even the date palm and the apple—

every tree in the field has dried up.

Joy itself has dried up

among the people.