Give ear to this, you old men, and take note, you people of the land. Has this ever been in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

What the worm did not make a meal of, has been taken by the locust; and what the locust did not take, has been food for the plant-worm; and what the plant-worm did not take, has been food for the field-fly.

Wake up ye drunkards, and weep: mourn all ye wine sippers because of your sweet wine, for it shall be taken away from your mouth.

By him my vine is made waste and my fig-tree broken: he has taken all its fruit and sent it down to the earth; its branches are made white.

For the meat and drink offering shall be taken away from the house of the LORD: and the priests, the LORD's ministers, shall mourn.

Gird you, and make your moan, O ye priests: mourn ye ministers of the alter: go your way in, and sleep in sackcloth, O ye officers of my God: for the meat and drink offering shall be taken away from the house of your God.

Shall not the meats be taken away before our eyes, the mirth also and joy from the house of our God?

Between the colonnade and the altar, let the priests, the ministers of Yahweh, weep. And let them say, "Take pity, Yahweh, on your people. Do not make your inheritance a reproach, a byword among [the] nations. Why should they say among the nations, 'Where [is] their God?'"

For take heed: in those days and at the same time, when I turn again the captivity of Juda and Jerusalem,

I will get together all the nations, and make them come down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and there I will take up with them the cause of my people and of my heritage Israel, whom they have sent wandering among the nations, and of my land which has been parted by them.

because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my beautiful pleasant things,