Luke 21


Luke 21 is the twenty-first chapter of the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the observations and predictions of Jesus Christ delivered in the temple in Jerusalem. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this Gospel as well as the Acts of the Apostles.

Text

The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 38 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:
The New International Version translates this as "Some of his disciples...", but some other versions suggest "some people" i.e. not specifically disciples of Jesus. The "beautiful stones" and the "gifts dedicated to God" both contribute to the splendor of the temple.

The destruction of the Temple

and Mark state that Jesus spoke privately to his disciples on Mount Olivet about the end times and the destruction of Jerusalem: see Olivet Discourse. Luke does not present this teaching as delivered privately:

Parable of the Budding Fig Tree

This parable was told by Jesus Christ and in the New Testament is found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This parable, about the Kingdom of God, involves a fig tree, as does the equally brief parable of the barren fig tree, with which it should not be confused. Luke presents this parable as eschatological in nature: like the leaves of the fig tree, the signs spoken of in the Olivet discourse of Luke 21:5-28 indicate the coming of the Kingdom of God.