Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:
Parallel translations
- WEB He said to them, “Foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
- BSB Then Jesus said to them, “O foolish ones, how slow are your hearts to believe all that the prophets have spoken!
- NKJV Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
- NASB And then He said to them, “You foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
- NLT Then Jesus said to them, “You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures.
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 gently rebukes the two for being slow to believe what the prophets had foretold. He shows that the Scriptures themselves had already announced the events they found confusing.
Overview
Rather than first revealing his identity, Jesus addresses the deeper problem: a failure to believe all that the prophets spoke. Their sorrow grew from reading the cross apart from Scripture's testimony. The rebuke is tender, aiming to lead them from despair to faith by reorienting them to God's revealed word.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Mark 7:18And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;
- Mark 9:19He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me.
- Heb 5:11–12Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing.
- Mark 16:14Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.
- Mark 8:17–18And when Jesus knew it, he saith unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? perceive ye not yet, neither understand? have ye your heart yet hardened?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 24:25 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.