Listen to this, you elders; pay attention, all inhabitants of the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your whole life or in the lifetime of your ancestors?

Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you wine drinkers, because the sweet wine has been taken away from you.

For a nation has invaded our land. There are so many of them they are too numerous to count. Their teeth are like those of a lion; they tear apart their prey like a lioness.

The crops of the fields have been destroyed. The ground is in mourning because the grain has perished. The fresh wine has dried up; the olive oil languishes.

Be distressed, farmers; wail, vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley. For the harvest of the field has perished.

The vine has dried up; the fig tree languishes -- the pomegranate, date, and apple as well. In fact, all the trees of the field have dried up. Indeed, the joy of the people has dried up!

Our food has been cut off right before our eyes! There is no longer any joy or gladness in the temple of our God!

The grains of seed have shriveled beneath their shovels. Storehouses have been decimated and granaries have been torn down, for the grain has dried up.

To you, O Lord, I call out for help, for fire has burned up the grassy pastures, flames have razed all the trees in the fields.

Even the wild animals cry out to you; for the river beds have dried up; fire has destroyed the grassy pastures.

It will be a day of dreadful darkness, a day of foreboding storm clouds, like blackness spread over the mountains. It is a huge and powerful army -- there has never been anything like it ever before, and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come!

I will remove the one from the north far from you. I will drive him out to a dry and desolate place. Those in front will be driven eastward into the Dead Sea, and those in back westward into the Mediterranean Sea. His stench will rise up as a foul smell." Indeed, the Lord has accomplished great things.

Do not fear, my land! Rejoice and be glad, because the Lord has accomplished great things!

Citizens of Zion, rejoice! Be glad because of what the Lord your God has done! For he has given to you the early rains as vindication. He has sent to you the rains -- both the early and the late rains as formerly.

You will have plenty to eat, and your hunger will be fully satisfied; you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has acted wondrously in your behalf. My people will never again be put to shame.

It will so happen that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered. For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who survive, just as the Lord has promised; the remnant will be those whom the Lord will call.

I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah. They will sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far away. Indeed, the Lord has spoken!