After them, seven years of famine will take place, and all the abundance in the land of Egypt will be forgotten. The famine will devastate the land.

The abundance in the land will not be remembered because of the famine that follows it, for the famine will be very severe.

Ahab said to Obadiah, "Go throughout the land to every spring of water and to every wadi. Perhaps we'll find grass so we can keep the horses and mules alive and not have to destroy any cattle."

The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought:

Their nobles send their servants for water. They go to the cisterns; they find no water; their containers return empty. They are ashamed and humiliated; they cover their heads.

Even the doe in the field gives birth and abandons [her fawn] since there is no grass.

Arise, cry out in the night, from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water before the Lord's presence. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street.

LORD, look and consider who You have done this to. Should women eat their own children, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the Lord's sanctuary?

Those slain by the sword are better off than those slain by hunger, who waste away, pierced [with pain] because the fields lack produce.

Then a famine came over all of Egypt and Canaan, with great suffering, and our forefathers could find no food.

Who is the man wise enough to understand this? Who has the LORD spoken to, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a wilderness, so no one can pass through?

The fields are destroyed; the land grieves; indeed, the grain is destroyed; the new wine is dried up; and the olive oil fails.

The grapevine is dried up, and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the date palm, and the apple-- all the trees of the orchard-- have withered. Indeed, human joy has dried up.