And responding, they *said to Him, “Where, Lord?” And He said to them, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will be gathered.”
Parallel translations
- WEB They, answering, asked him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the body is, there will the vultures also be gathered together.”
- KJV And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.
- BSB “Where, Lord?” they asked. Jesus answered, “Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.”
- NKJV And they answered and said to Him, “Where, Lord?” So He said to them, “Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.”
- NLT “Where will this happen, Lord?” the disciples asked. Jesus replied, “Just as the gathering of vultures shows there is a carcass nearby, so these signs indicate that the end is near.”
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
Asked 'Where?', Jesus answers that vultures gather where the body is. Judgment will be unmistakable wherever it is needed.
Overview
The disciples ask where this judgment will fall, and Jesus replies with a proverb: as vultures inevitably gather over a carcass, so judgment will surely come where it is due. The saying stresses certainty and self-evident location rather than a single geographic spot. Judgment will find its object as surely as nature follows its course.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Matt 24:28For wherever the carcass is, there is where the vultures gather together.
- Job 39:29–30From there he spies out the prey. His eyes see it afar off.
- Rev 19:17–18I saw an angel standing in the sun. He cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the sky, “Come! Be gathered together to the great supper of God,
- Zech 13:8–9It shall happen that in all the land,” says Yahweh, “two parts in it will be cut off and die; but the third will be left in it.
- Zech 14:2For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city will be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go out into captivity, and the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.
- Amos 9:1–4I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said, “Strike the tops of the pillars, that the thresholds may shake; and break them in pieces on the head of all of them; and I will kill the last of them with the sword: there shall not one of them flee away, and there shall not one of them escape.
- Dan 9:26–27After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One shall be cut off, and shall have nothing: and the people of the prince who shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and its end shall be with a flood, and even to the end shall be war; desolations are determined.
- 1 Th 2:16forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved; to fill up their sins always. But wrath has come on them to the uttermost.
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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 17:37 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.