Bible Strands
Luke 11:47
Woe to you! For you build tombs for the prophets, but it was your fathers who killed them.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jesus addresses the experts in the law during a sequence of condemnations, immediately following his rebuke of their heavy burdens in Luke 11:46.
The words — οἰκοδομεῖτε (oikodomeite) translates as you build, and μνημεῖα (mnēmeia) denotes tombs or memorial structures.
The thread — The same accusation runs through Matthew 23:29, Acts 7:51, and 1 Thessalonians 2:15, where reverence for prophetic monuments is paired with the rejection of their message and the continuation of ancestral violence.
Why it lands — It demands the reader acknowledge that honoring dead prophets while following their killers' legacy is direct complicity with the very rejection those prophets opposed.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
Cross-references
- Acts 7:51 You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.
- 1 Thessalonians 2:15 who 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,
- Matthew 23:29 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous.