Joel 1:5 (KJV)

Passage

Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.

Nearby Context

Joel 1:3 Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.

Joel 1:4 That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.

Joel 1:5 Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.

Joel 1:6 For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion.

Joel 1:7 He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "awake", "drunkards", "weep", "howl", "drinkers", "wine", and "mouth". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "awake" and "drunkards", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 4's "That which the palmerworm hath left hath..." into verse 6's "For a nation is come up upon...", so "awake" and "drunkards" belong inside that flow. In Joel context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "awake" and "drunkards" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.