For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.
Jesus spoke these words while being led through the streets toward his crucifixion. Women along the road were weeping for him, and he turned to address them directly. In Jewish culture of that time, being unable to have children was considered one of life's deepest sorrows — a loss of legacy and a source of profound shame. By saying the childless would one day be called blessed, Jesus was warning of a coming catastrophe so devastating that the normal order of blessing and loss would be completely reversed. He was prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem, which occurred around 70 AD when Roman armies besieged the city in a brutal campaign resulting in mass starvation and enormous loss of life. This is not a statement against motherhood — it is Jesus honestly describing the scale of suffering he saw ahead.
Jesus, you did not look away from pain — yours or anyone else's. Help me trust you even when you do not make things easier. Teach me to walk toward hard truth instead of around it, knowing you have already been there ahead of me. Be near those carrying grief they cannot name today. Amen.
Most of what Jesus says feels like something you can hold. This feels like a cold wind off the water. He is walking toward his own death — and instead of receiving the comfort being offered to him, he redirects it into a warning. The grief ahead is so large, he says, that an ancient blessing — children, a future, legacy — would come to feel like mercy withheld. He does not soften it. He does not say everything will be fine. This verse does not resolve into comfort, and that matters. It asks you to sit with a Jesus who looked at suffering clearly, without flinching and without offering easy reassurance. There is a kind of respect in that bluntness — he treated those women as people who could handle the truth. Are there hard realities in your own life you keep asking God to make easier, when perhaps he is simply asking you to let him walk through them with you, eyes open?
Why do you think Jesus turned to comfort the women weeping for him rather than accepting their comfort? What does that reveal about who he is?
This is one of the harder things Jesus says. How do you respond emotionally to a verse like this — does it trouble you, challenge you, or something else entirely?
Jesus refused to offer false comfort here. How do you personally balance honesty about hard things with holding onto hope — and where do you tend to land?
How does Jesus' willingness to speak hard truth to people he cared about challenge the way you communicate difficult things to people you love?
Is there a difficult reality in your life right now that you have been asking God to remove rather than walk through? What would it look like to invite him into it instead?
And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
Luke 21:24
And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
Matthew 24:19
And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.
Leviticus 26:29
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
James 5:1
Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.
Hosea 13:16
For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not given birth, and the breasts that have never nursed.'
AMP
For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’
ESV
'For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.'
NASB
For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’
NIV
For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed!’
NKJV
For the days are coming when they will say, ‘Fortunate indeed are the women who are childless, the wombs that have not borne a child and the breasts that have never nursed.’
NLT
The time is coming when they'll say, 'Lucky the women who never conceived! Lucky the wombs that never gave birth! Lucky the breasts that never gave milk!'
MSG