2Hear this, O elders,

Listen closely, all inhabitants of the land!

Has such a thing as this occurred in your days,

Or even in the days of your fathers?

3Tell your children about it,

And let your children tell their children,

And their children the next generation.

4What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten;

And what the swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten;

And what the creeping locust has left, the stripping locust has eaten [in judgment of Judah].

5Awake [from your intoxication], you drunkards, and weep;

Wail, all you drinkers of wine,

Because of the [fresh] sweet wine

That is cut off from your mouth.

6For a [pagan and hostile] nation has invaded My land [like locusts],

Mighty and without number;

Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,

And it has the fangs of a lioness.

7It has made My vine (My people) a waste and object of horror,

And splintered and broken My fig tree.

It has stripped them completely bare and thrown them away;

Their branches have become white.

8Wail like a virgin [bride] clothed with [b]sackcloth

For the bridegroom of her youth [who has died].

9The [daily] grain offering and the drink offering are cut off

From the house of the LORD;

The priests mourn

Who minister to the LORD.

10The field is ruined,

The ground mourns;

For the grain is ruined,

The new wine is dried up,

The fresh oil fails.

11Be ashamed, O farmers;

Wail, O vinedressers,

For the wheat and for the barley,

Because the harvest of the field has perished.

12The vine dries up

And the fig tree fails;

The pomegranate, the palm also, and the apple tree,

All the trees of the field dry up,

Indeed, joy dries up and withdraws

From the sons of men.

13Clothe yourselves with sackcloth

And lament (cry out in grief), O priests;

Wail, O ministers of the altar!

Come, spend the night in sackcloth [and pray without ceasing],

O ministers of my God,

For the grain offering and the drink offering

Are withheld from the house of your God.

Starvation and Drought