1:2 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?
1:3 Tell your children about it,
have your children tell their children,
and their children the following generation.
1:4 What the gazam-locust left the ‘arbeh-locust consumed,
what the ‘arbeh-locust left the yeleq-locust consumed,
and what the yeleq-locust left the hasil-locust consumed!
1:5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all you wine drinkers,
because the sweet wine has been taken away from you.
1:6 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.
1:7 They have destroyed our vines;
they have turned our fig trees into mere splinters.
They have completely stripped off the bark and thrown them aside;
the twigs are stripped bare.