Joel 1:13 (WEB)

Passage

Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.

Nearby Context

Joel 1:11 Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished.

Joel 1:12 The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the sons of men.

Joel 1:13 Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.

Joel 1:14 Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders, and all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh, your God, and cry to Yahweh.

Joel 1:15 Alas for the day! For the day of Yahweh is at hand, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "sackcloth", "mourn", "priests", "wail", "ministers", "altar", "come", and "night". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "sackcloth" and "mourn", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 12's "The vine has dried up and the..." into verse 14's "Sanctify a fast Call a solemn assembly...", so "sackcloth" and "mourn" 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 "sackcloth" and "mourn" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.