lie all night in sackcloth,
Ye ministers of my God:
For the meal offering and the drink offering
Is withholden from the house of your God!

THE WHOLE PEOPLE

Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the old men and all the
inhabitants of the land unto the house of the LORD your God, and cry
unto the LORD:

Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand!
And as destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
Is not the meat cut off before our eyes,
Yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God?

The seeds rot under their clods:
The garners are laid desolate,
The barns are broken down;
For the corn is withered.

How do the beasts groan!
The herds of cattle are perplexed,
Because they have no pasture;
Yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

O LORD, to thee do I cry:
For the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness,
And the flame hath burned all the trees of the field.
Yea, the beasts of the field pant unto thee:
For the water brooks are dried up,
And the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

ii

The Judgment Advancing

Blow ye the trumpet in Zion,
And sound an alarm in my holy mountain;
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble!

For the Day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a day of
darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, as the dawn
spread upon the mountains; a great people and a strong, there hath not
been ever the like, neither shall be any more after them, even to the
years of many generations!

A fire devoureth before them;
And behind them a flame burneth:
The land is as the garden of Eden before them,
And behind them a desolate wilderness!

Yea, and none hath escaped them. The appearance of them is as the
appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so do they run. Like the noise of
chariots on the tops of the mountains do they leap, like the noise of a
flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in
battle array.

At their presence the peoples are in anguish:
All faces are waxed pale:
They run like mighty men;
They climb the wall like men of war;
And they march every one on his ways.

And they break not their ranks: neither doth one thrust another; they
march every one in his path: and they burst through the weapons, and
break not off their course.

They leap upon the city;
They run upon the wall;
The