KJV King James Version
Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.
VERSE STUDY • KJV
Joel 1:13
Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.
Read it in 5 translations
BSB Berean Standard Bible
Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God, because the grain and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.
WEB World English Bible
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.
ASV American Standard Version
Gird yourselves with sackcloth, and lament, ye priests; wail, ye ministers of the altar; come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meal-offering and the drink-offering are withholden from the house of your God.
YLT Young’s Literal Translation
Gird, and lament, ye priests, Howl, ye ministrants of the altar, Come in, lodge in sackcloth, ministrants of my God, For withheld from the house of your God hath been present and libation.
Surrounding context — Joel 1
10 The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.
11 Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.
12 The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, [even] all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men.
13 Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.
14 Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders [and] all the inhabitants of the land [into] the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD,
15 Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD [is] at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
16 Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, [yea], joy and gladness from the house of our God?
Cross-references
Jeremiah 4:8For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the LORD is not turned back from us.Joel 1:8-9Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.1 Kings 21:27And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.Ezekiel 7:18They shall also gird [themselves] with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame [shall be] upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads.Joel 2:17Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where [is] their God?Jonah 3:5-8So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.Jeremiah 9:10For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through [them]; neither can [men] hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled; they are gone.2 Corinthians 6:4But in all [things] approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,Numbers 29:6Beside the burnt offering of the month, and his meat offering, and the daily burnt offering, and his meat offering, and their drink offerings, according unto their manner, for a sweet savour, a sacrifice made by fire unto the LORD.2 Corinthians 3:6Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.Leviticus 2:8-10And thou shalt bring the meat offering that is made of these things unto the LORD: and when it is presented unto the priest, he shall bring it unto the altar.1 Corinthians 9:13Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live [of the things] of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?2 Corinthians 11:23Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I [am] more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.2 Samuel 12:16David therefore besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth.Isaiah 61:6But ye shall be named the Priests of the LORD: [men] shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves.1 Corinthians 4:1Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.Hebrews 7:13-14For he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the altar.
HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION
Compare classic commentaries on Joel 1:13
Put Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, Calvin, Wesley, Barnes, Jamieson–Fausset–Brown, Aquinas’ Catena and other public-domain sources beside the passage.
Compare commentaries →