Joel presents words for priests to say between the vestibule and the altar: “Spare your people, O LORD.” The prayer asks that God’s heritage not become an object of reproach. See Joel 2:17.
In Joel 2:15–17 the speaker orders a full-community emergency gathering. A trumpet is sounded in Zion to announce a fast and a special assembly. Everyone is included—leaders, elders, children, nursing infants, and even a newly married couple—so that normal life pauses for public pleading. These verses sit inside Joel’s larger response to a devastating crisis, where earlier scenes describe widespread ruin and alarm and then pivot into a direct call for the people to return to Yahweh (see Joel 2:12–14).
These verses present a community-wide emergency summons in response to crisis. The text is explicit that the response is public, organized, and led through the temple: a trumpet is sounded in Zion, a fast is set apart, and a “solemn assembly” is called.
A careful answer keeps the immediate passage, the book's argument, and the whole-Bible storyline together, so the question is answered in context instead of as a detached idea.
Start with Joel 2:17, then read the surrounding section so the answer stays connected to the passage's flow.
17Let the priests, the ministers of Yahweh, weep between the porch and the altar, And let them say, "Spare your people, Yahweh, And don`t give your heritage to reproach, That the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, `Where is their God?`"