Woe to you! You build tombs for the prophets, but it was your fathers who killed them.
Parallel translations
- WEB Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
- KJV Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
- NKJV Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
- NASB Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was your fathers who killed them.
- NLT What sorrow awaits you! For you build monuments for the prophets your own ancestors killed long ago.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Jesus pronounces woe on those who build the prophets' tombs while their fathers killed them. Honoring dead prophets while resisting God's word is hypocrisy.
Overview
Building memorials to the prophets looks pious but masks continuity with those who killed them. Their hearts reject the living word as their fathers did. The woe exposes a reverence for the past that refuses to obey God in the present.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 3
- Acts 7:51You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.
- 1 Th 2:15who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out as well. They are displeasing to God and hostile to all men,
- Matt 23:29–33Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Luke shows Jesus the Savior for all — outsiders, the poor, the nations — the one who, on the Emmaus road, opened all the Scriptures to show they were about himself.
How Luke 11:47 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.