Luke 23:28-30

23:28 But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, ¹  do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves ²  and for your children. 23:29 For this is certain: ³  The days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore children, and the breasts that never nursed!’ ⁴  23:30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ⁵  ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’ ⁶ 

¹ sn The title Daughters of Jerusalem portrays these women mourning as representatives of the nation.

² sn Do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves. Judgment now comes on the nation (see Luke 19:41-44) for this judgment of Jesus. Ironically, they mourn the wrong person – they should be mourning for themselves.

³ tn Grk “For behold.”

⁴ tn Grk “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the breasts that have not nursed!”

⁵ sn The figure of crying out to the mountains ‘Fall on us!’ (appealing to creation itself to hide them from God’s wrath), means that a time will come when people will feel they are better off dead (Hos 10:8).

⁶ sn An allusion to Hos 10:8 (cf. Rev 6:16).