A locust plague and a call to return.
Explore the book of Joel - a devastating locust plague, a call to repentance, and a promise of the Spirit poured out on all people.
The full text, World English Bible - start reading here.
ReadA natural disaster read as a warning sign.
Learn MoreFasting, mourning, and genuine repentance.
Learn MoreA promise later quoted in the book of Acts.
Learn MoreJoel opens with a vivid description of a locust plague so severe it strips the land bare, described in escalating waves that leave nothing behind. Rather than treating the disaster as a purely natural event, the book reads it as a sign calling the community to reflect and respond, using the vivid, almost apocalyptic imagery of the swarm to describe a larger "day of the Lord" still to come.
In response to the crisis, Joel calls the whole community, priests, elders, children, even nursing infants, to gather for collective fasting and mourning. The prophet is careful to emphasize that this repentance must be genuine rather than merely ceremonial, urging the people to "rend your heart, not your garments," a phrase that has echoed well beyond its original context as shorthand for sincerity over empty ritual.
Joel's most influential passage promises a future outpouring of God's Spirit "on all flesh," explicitly including sons and daughters, old and young, servants as well as free people, cutting across social categories that would ordinarily determine who could speak for God. This prophecy is directly quoted in the New Testament book of Acts to explain the events of Pentecost, making Joel one of the more surprising but consequential of the twelve minor prophets for later Christian tradition.