²⁵ I will give back to you the years which were food for the locust, the plant-worm, the field-fly, and the worm, my great army which I sent among you.

⁶ And I will make the children of Judah strong, and I will be the saviour of the children of Joseph, and I will make them come back again, for I have had mercy on them: they will be as if I had not given them up: for I am the Lord their God and I will give them an answer.

⁴ 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.

⁵ Come out of your sleep, you who are overcome with wine, and give yourselves to weeping; give cries of sorrow, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it has been cut off from your mouths.

⁶ For a nation has come up over my land, strong and without number; his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the back teeth of a great lion.

⁷ 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.

² For a day of dark and deep shade is near, a day of cloud and black night: like a black cloud a great and strong people is covering the mountains; there has never been any like them and will not be after them again, from generation to generation.

³ Before them fire sends destruction, and after them flame is burning: the land is like the garden of Eden before them, and after them an unpeopled waste; truly, nothing has been kept safe from them.

⁴ Their form is like the form of horses, and they are running like war-horses.

⁵ Like the sound of war-carriages they go jumping on the tops of the mountains; like the noise of a flame of fire burning up the grain-stems, like a strong people lined up for the fight.

⁶ At their coming the people are bent with pain: all faces become red together.

⁷ They are running like strong men, they go over the wall like men of war; every man goes straight on his way, their lines are not broken.

⁸ No one is pushing against another; everyone goes straight on his way: bursting through the sword points, their order is not broken.

⁹ They make a rush on the town, running on the wall; they go up into the houses and in through the windows like a thief.

¹⁰ The earth is troubled before them and the heavens are shaking: the sun and the moon have become dark, and the stars keep back their shining:

¹¹ And the Lord is thundering before his forces; for very great is his army; for he is strong who gives effect to his word: for the day of the Lord is great and greatly to be feared, and who has strength against it?