Mark 13:17
15 Let no one on the housetop go back inside to retrieve anything from his house.
16 And let no one in the field return for his cloak.
How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers!
18 Pray that this will not occur in the winter.
19 For those will be days of tribulation unmatched from the beginning of God’s creation until now, and never to be seen again.
This was said to Israel at a particular time, so it is wise to read it together with the surrounding text. Do read the surrounding verses too, because the context often says more than a single verse.
Compare
- BSB
- How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers!
- KJV
- But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
- WEB
- But woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babies in those days!
- ASV
- But woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days!
- DARBY
- But woe to those that are with child and to those that give suck in those days!
- BLB
- And woe to those having in womb and to those nursing in those days!
- ÅB
- Ve de fruktsommelige og dem som gir die, i de dager!
- OTB
- Hvor fryktelig det vil være for dem som er gravide og ammer spedbarn i de dager!
- B1930
- Ve de fruktsommelige og dem som gir die, i de dager!
Study notes (Tyndale)
Original text and word study
Cross references
Luke 23:29
Look, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore, and breasts that never nursed!’
Read in contextLamentations 4:10
The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Read in contextHosea 13:16
Samaria will bear her guilt because she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.
Read in contextLuke 21:23
How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers! For there will be great distress upon the land and wrath against this people.
Read in contextMatthew 24:19–21
How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers!
Read in contextLamentations 4:3–4
Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness.
Read in contextDeuteronomy 28:56–57
The most gentle and refined woman among you, so gentle and refined she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter
Read in contextLamentations 2:19–20
Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street.
Read in context