Bible Strands
Luke 6:25
Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will hunger. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jesus delivers this declaration during His Sermon on the Plain, addressing a gathered crowd immediately after pronouncing blessings on the poor, hungry, weeping, and reviled.
The words — The Greek Οὐαί (Ouai) literally means "woe," functioning as a formal pronouncement of impending judgment. ἐμπεπλησμένοι (empeplēsmenoi) translates to "filled" or "well fed," denoting a state of complete current satisfaction.
The thread — The text states that current comfort will reverse into hunger and mourning, a pattern repeated in Isaiah 65:13 where God contrasts His servants' provision with the rejection of others, and in James 4:9 where laughter is explicitly commanded to become mourning.
Why it lands — The passage first records the factual warning that present satisfaction and joy are temporary, then requires the reader to abandon reliance on current comfort and prepare for future spiritual reckoning.
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 that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 65:13 Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: “My servants will eat, but you will go hungry; My servants will drink, but you will go thirsty; My servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame.
- James 4:9 Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
- Proverbs 14:13 Even in laughter the heart may ache, and joy may end in sorrow.
- Luke 16:14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all of this and were scoffing at Jesus.
- Job 20:5 the triumph of the wicked has been brief and the joy of the godless momentary?
- Amos 8:10 I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day.
- Revelation 3:17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have grown wealthy and need nothing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.
- Luke 8:53 And they laughed at Him, knowing that she was dead.
- Philippians 4:12 I know how to live humbly, and I know how to abound. In any and every situation I have learned the secret of being filled and being hungry, of having plenty and having need.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:3 While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.