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perishable

Luke 13:3-5
"3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
4 Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
5 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."

This is a sobering parable rarely taught in children’s Sunday school. It is prompted by news of a shocking atrocity: Pontius Pilate had ordered the slaughter of Galilean Jews while they were offering sacrifices in the Temple. The vivid phrase “mingled their blood with their sacrifices” paints a gruesome picture of worshippers killed in the midst of a sacred act.

Jesus immediately confronts a common misconception. The people reporting the tragedy apparently assumed these Galileans must have been worse sinners than others to deserve such a fate. Jesus directly challenges this:
“Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered these things?”

He makes the same point with another recent disaster—the collapse of the tower in Siloam that killed eighteen people. In both cases, Jesus firmly rejects the idea that great suffering proves great personal sin. These tragedies were not divine punishments for specific sins of the victims.

Instead, Jesus turns the focus back on His hearers:
“Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

“Repent” (Greek: metanoia) means a genuine change of heart and mind—turning away from sin and turning toward God. The warning of “perishing” carries both a near-term warning of national judgment (fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70) and the far more serious reality of eternal separation from God for unrepentant individuals.
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