Luke 17:8

Instead, won’t he tell him, ‘Prepare my meal and dress yourself to serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you may eat and drink’?

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — Jesus speaks to his disciples while advancing a parable about a field laborer returning to his master. He frames a rhetorical question about the servant’s expected duties after work.

The words — ἑτοίμασον (hetoimason) means do prepare, and οὐχὶ (ouchi) translates as surely. The phrasing establishes the master’s expectation that service precedes any shared meal.

The thread — The preparation motif appears in Luke 12:37, Genesis 43:16, and 2 Samuel 12:20. Luke 12:37 describes a master preparing to serve waiting servants, Genesis 43:16 records Joseph commanding his steward to slaughter and prepare a meal, and 2 Samuel 12:20 shows David preparing himself before entering the house of the LORD.

Why it lands — The text states that a servant’s duty is to obey commands without demanding recognition. It asks the reader to accept assigned work as the baseline expectation rather than a condition for reward.

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

And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?

Cross-references

Luke 12:37 Blessed are those servants whom the master finds on watch when he returns. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve and will have them recline at the table, and he himself will come and wait on them.
Genesis 43:16 When Joseph saw Benjamin with his brothers, he said to the steward of his house, “Take these men to my house. Slaughter an animal and prepare it, for they shall dine with me at noon.”
2 Samuel 12:20 Then David got up from the ground, washed and anointed himself, changed his clothes, and went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they set food before him, and he ate.