Joel 1

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¹The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. ✦ ²Hear this, you elders, And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land! Has anything like this happened in your days, Or even in the days of your fathers? ✦ ³Tell your children about it, Let your children tell their children, And their children another generation. ✦ ⁴What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten; And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten. ✦ ⁵Awake, you drunkards, and weep; And wail, all you drinkers of wine, Because of the new wine, For it has been cut off from your mouth. ✦ ⁶For a nation has come up against My land, Strong, and without number; His teeth are the teeth of a lion, And he has the fangs of a fierce lion. ✦ ⁷He has laid waste My vine, And ruined My fig tree; He has stripped it bare and thrown it away; Its branches are made white. ✦ ⁸Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth For the husband of her youth. ✦ ⁹The grain offering and the drink offering Have been cut off from the house of the Lord; The priests mourn, who minister to the Lord. ✦ ¹⁰The field is wasted, The land mourns; For the grain is ruined, The new wine is dried up, The oil fails. ✦ ¹¹Be ashamed, you farmers, Wail, you vinedressers, For the wheat and the barley; Because the harvest of the field has perished. ✦ ¹²The vine has dried up, And the fig tree has withered; The pomegranate tree, The palm tree also, And the apple tree— All the trees of the field are withered; Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men. ✦ ¹³Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; Wail, you who minister before the altar; Come, lie all night in sackcloth, You who minister to my God; For the grain offering and the drink offering Are withheld from the house of your God. ✦ ¹⁴Consecrate a fast, Call a sacred assembly; Gather the elders And all the inhabitants of the land Into the house of the Lord your God, And cry out to the Lord. ✦ ¹⁵Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is at hand; It shall come as destruction from the Almighty. ✦ ¹⁶Is not the food cut off before our eyes, Joy and gladness from the house of our God? ✦ ¹⁷The seed shrivels under the clods, Storehouses are in shambles; Barns are broken down, For the grain has withered. ✦ ¹⁸How the animals groan! The herds of cattle are restless, Because they have no pasture; Even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment. ✦ ¹⁹O Lord, to You I cry out; For fire has devoured the open pastures, And a flame has burned all the trees of the field. ✦ ²⁰The beasts of the field also cry out to You, For the water brooks are dried up, And fire has devoured the open pastures. ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

Where this chapter connects

Joel 1 ·16 Joel 2 ·13 Isa 24 ·6 Exod 10 ·4 Jer 9 ·4 Hos 9 ·4 Amos 4 ·4 Jer 48 ·3

Christ at the center

The promised outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh and the call to 'everyone who calls on the name of the LORD' are fulfilled at Pentecost in the name of Jesus.

How Joel 1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — Joel videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on Joel 1YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — Joel 1David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on JoelMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — Joel 1Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

Joel 2 →