Bible Strands
Luke 13:34
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jesus addresses Jerusalem as a personified city, speaking from the road toward it (v.33), in the final stretch before his death.
The words — ἀποκτείνουσα (apokteinousa, "killing") and λιθοβολοῦσα (lithobolousa, "stoning") are present active participles, framing the city's violence as a continuous, defining habit rather than a single event.
The thread — Matthew 23:37 repeats the verse nearly verbatim; Deuteronomy 32:11 supplies the bird-gathering image; Isaiah 30:15 names the condition ("repentance and rest") that the city's unwillingness rejects.
Why it lands — The verse isolates refusal as the operative act: the invitation was extended, repeated, and declined. It asks the reader to recognize that the distance between offer and response is where the decision lives.
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
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!
Cross-references
- Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!
- Deuteronomy 32:11 As an eagle stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, He spread His wings to catch them and carried them on His pinions.
- Isaiah 30:15 For the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said: “By repentance and rest you would be saved; your strength would lie in quiet confidence—but you were not willing.”
- Luke 19:41 As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it
- Acts 7:52 Which of the prophets did your fathers fail to persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One. And now you are His betrayers and murderers—
- Ruth 2:12 May the LORD repay your work, and may you receive a rich reward from the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have taken refuge.”
- Jeremiah 6:16 This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths: ‘Where is the good way?’ Then walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it!’
- Jeremiah 7:23 but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you.
- Hosea 11:2 But the more I called Israel, the farther they departed from Me. They sacrificed to the Baals and burned incense to carved images.
- Luke 23:28 But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.