Tell your children about it,
And let your children tell their children,
And their children the next generation.
¶What 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].
Awake [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.
For 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. [Rev 9:7, 8]
It 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. [Is 5:5, 6]
¶Wail like a virgin [bride] clothed with sackcloth
For the bridegroom of her youth [who has died].
The [daily] grain offering and the drink offering are cut off
From the house of the LORD;
The priests mourn
Who minister to the LORD.
The field is ruined,
The ground mourns;
For the grain is ruined,
The new wine is dried up,
The fresh oil fails.
Be ashamed, O farmers;
Wail, O vinedressers,
For the wheat and for the barley,
Because the harvest of the field has perished.
The 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.