Lukas 17:28-33

17:28 Likewise, just as it was ¹  in the days of Lot, people ²  were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; 17:29 but on the day Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. ³  17:30 It will be the same on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 17:31 On that day, anyone who is on the roof, ⁴  with his goods in the house, must not come down ⁵  to take them away, and likewise the person in the field must not turn back. 17:32 Remember Lot’s wife! ⁶  17:33 Whoever tries to keep ⁷  his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life ⁸  will preserve it.

[17:28]  ¹ tn Or “as it happened.”

[17:28]  ² tn Grk “they.” The plural in Greek is indefinite, referring to people in general.

[17:29]  ³ sn And destroyed them all. The coming of the Son of Man will be like the judgment on Sodom, one of the most immoral places of the OT (Gen 19:16-17; Deut 32:32-33; Isa 1:10).

[17:31]  ⁴ sn Most of the roofs in the NT were flat roofs made of pounded dirt, sometimes mixed with lime or stones, supported by heavy wooden beams. They generally had an easy means of access, either a sturdy wooden ladder or stone stairway, sometimes on the outside of the house.

[17:31]  ⁵ sn The swiftness and devastation of the judgment will require a swift escape. There is no time to come down from one’s roof and pick up anything from inside one’s home.

[17:32]  ⁶ sn An allusion to Gen 19:26. The warning about Lot’s wife is not to look back and long to be where one used to be. The world is being judged, and the person who delays or turns back will be destroyed.

[17:33]  ⁷ tn Or “tries to preserve”; Grk “seeks to gain.”

[17:33]  sn If there is no willingness to suffer the world’s rejection at this point, then one will not respond to Jesus (which is trying to keep his life) and then will be subject to this judgment (which is losing it).

[17:33]  ⁸ sn Whoever loses his life. Suffering and persecution caused by the world, even to death, cannot stop God from saving (Luke 12:4-6).