Lukas 21:23

21:23 Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing their babies in those days! For there will be great distress ¹  on the earth and wrath against this people.

Lukas 23:29-30

23:29 For this is certain: ²  The days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore children, and the breasts that never nursed!’ ³  23:30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ⁴  ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’ ⁵ 

[21:23]  ¹ sn Great distress means that this is a period of great judgment.

[23:29]  ² tn Grk “For behold.”

[23:29]  ³ tn Grk “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the breasts that have not nursed!”

[23:29]  sn Normally barrenness is a sign of judgment, because birth would be seen as a sign of blessing. The reversal of imagery indicates that something was badly wrong.

[23:30]  ⁴ 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).

[23:30]  ⁵ sn An allusion to Hos 10:8 (cf. Rev 6:16).