11
“Lord, Please Teach Us What We Should Pray”
1 One day Jesus+ was in a certain place praying. When he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, please teach us what we should pray,+ just as John himself taught his disciples.”
2 Jesus+ said to them, “When ᵖyou are praying, say,
“ ‘Father,
may the holiness of your Name be vindicated.+
May your Kingdom come.
3 Please grant us this each day: The food+ we need.+
4 And forgive us our sins,
for we, too, forgive everyone who sins against us.+
And don’t let us yield+ to temptation.+’ ”
5 Then he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend and you go to him+ at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, please let me borrow three loaves of bread,
6 because a friend of mine has been traveling and has just dropped in for a visit, and I don’t have any food for him.+’
7 And that friend, from inside, answers, ‘Stop causing me so much trouble! The door is already locked, and my children and I+ are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’
8 I tell ᵖyou that even if that friend will not get up and give something to the one who is asking+ on account of their friendship,+ he will get up and give him everything he needs because of this: His bold persistence.
9 I, indeed, tell you this: Keep asking, and your request+ will be granted to ᵖyou. Keep seeking, and ᵖyou will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to ᵖyou.
10 It is the person who asks persistently, you see, who receives. And who is it that finds? The one who continues to seek. And to whom will the door be opened? To the one who knocks again and again.
11 What father among you, if his son were to ask him for a fish, would, instead of a fish, give him a snake?
12 Or if his son+ asks him for an egg, is he going to give the boy+ a scorpion?
13 If ᵖyou, therefore, even though you are so wicked, know how to give your children such good gifts, how much more surely will your Father in heaven himself give the Holy Spirit to those who keep asking him!+”
“Every Kingdom Divided against Itself Is Sure to Be Turned into a Desolate Ruin”
14 One time+ Jesus+ was driving a demon out of a man who couldn’t talk.+ When the demon came out, the man+ began to speak, and the crowds were in awe.
15 Some of them, however, said, “It is by the power of Beelzebul, the ruler in charge of demons, that he drives out demons.”
16 Others, meanwhile, to test him, were demanding this from him: A definitive sign from heaven.+
17 Jesus,+ however, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is sure to be turned into a desolate ruin, and a divided household+ is doomed to fall.
18 Now if Satan, likewise, is divided against himself, how can his kingdom survive? I say this because ᵖyou claim that it is by the power of Beelzebul that I am driving out demons.
19 If, moreover, in my own case, Beelzebul is the one by whose power+ I am supposedly driving out demons, then what about ᵖyour disciples+? By whose power do they drive them out? Hence even the actions of your own followers firmly refute ᵖyour accusations.+
20 If, however, it is by the very finger of God+ that I am driving out demons, then the Kingdom of God is certain to come against ᵖyou.
21 When the strong one,+ fully armed, guards his own palace,+ his possessions are secure.+
22 When someone even stronger than he attacks and defeats him, however, that stronger one+ takes this away—the strong one’s+ armor and weapons, on which he depended—and divides up the spoils left from the strong one’s defeat.+
23 If someone is not with me, he is against me, and if someone doesn’t gather the sheep with me, he causes the flock to scatter.+
24 “When an unclean spirit comes out of a person, it goes through waterless places looking for relief.+ But when it doesn’t find any, it says, ‘I’ll return to my previous house, from which I came out.+’
25 And when it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and tidied up.
26 Then it goes and brings along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they enter the house and take up residence there. And so that person’s later situation ends up being worse than his previous one.”
27 As Jesus+ was saying these things, there called out+ to him a certain woman in the crowd. “Blessed is the mother who had the honor of carrying you in her womb and nursing you!”++ she said.
28 Jesus+ replied, “Yes, but even more importantly, blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”
“This Generation Is a Wicked Generation”
29 As the crowds were thronging around Jesus,+ he began saying, “This generation is a wicked generation. It demands a sign,+ and yet no sign will be given to it, except one: The sign of Jonah.
30 For just as Jonah became a warning and example to these people—the Ninevites—so also will the Son of Man be to this generation.
31 Who will appear at the judgment alongside the people of this generation and condemn them? The Queen of the South. Why? Because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, whereas this generation refuses to listen even though there is something here that is greater than Solomon.
32 Who else will appear at the Judgment alongside this generation and condemn it? The people of Nineveh. Why? Because they repented when Jonah proclaimed God’s message to them,+ whereas this generation refuses to repent even though there is something here even greater than Jonah.
“The Lamp of the Body Is Your Eye”
33 “When someone has lit a lamp, he puts it not in a cellar or under the measuring basket, but on the lampstand, so that those coming in can see the light.
34 The lamp of the body is ˢyour eye. When ˢyour eye is generous, your entire body is also full of light. When your eye+ is this, however—greedy and selfish+—ˢyour body is also full of darkness.
35 Make sure, then, that the light that is in ˢyou isn’t in reality darkness.
36 If ˢyour entire body is full of light, therefore, with no part of it in darkness, it will be completely lighted, as when a lamp gives ˢyou light with its bright rays.”
“Woe to You Pharisees!”
37 When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to have a meal with him. So Jesus+ went in and reclined at the meal table.
38 The Pharisee, meanwhile, was shocked when he saw that Jesus didn’t first perform the prescribed ritual washing+ before the meal.
39 “Now you Pharisees,” the Lord said to him, “it is the outside of the cup and the plate that ᵖyou clean. On the inside, however, ᵖyou are full of greed and wickedness.
40 You foolish people! The one who created the outside created, too, the inside, didn’t he?+
41 But it is from the heart+ that ᵖyou are to give to the poor;+ if you do, then all things are clean for ᵖyou.
42 Yet woe to ᵖyou Pharisees! For although ᵖyou exceed the Torah’s requirements by tithing even mint and rue and all other kinds of herbs,+ ᵖyou neglect just judgment and the love of God. These things, however, ᵖyou should have done, while those others not neglecting.
43 Woe to ᵖyou Pharisees! For ᵖyou love the seat of honor in the synagogues and elaborate greetings+ in the market areas.
44 Woe to ᵖyou! For ᵖyou are like unmarked graves; the people who walk over your defiling corruption do so without even realizing it.+”
45 In response one of the Torah-experts said to him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you are heaping insults, too, on us.”
46 “Woe and calamity, too, to ᵖyou Torah-experts!” Jesus+ replied. “For ᵖyou load people down with strict and heavy requirements,+ but you yourselves refuse to do even the slightest little thing to provide any help.+
47 Woe to ᵖyou! For ᵖyou build monuments to honor and commemorate the prophets,+ and ᵖyour ancestors+ killed them.
48 So, you are witnesses to the fact and approve of what your ancestors did,+ because while they, on the one hand, killed the prophets,+ ᵖyou, on the other, build their monuments!
49 That is the reason why the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’
50 so that this generation will answer for+ the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the foundation of the world—
51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar of sacrifice and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell ᵖyou this: The payback for their blood will fall upon this generation.++
52 Woe to you Torah-experts! For ᵖyou have taken away the key to understanding.+ You yourselves have refused to enter, and you have stopped those who were trying to enter.”
53 As Jesus+ left that place, the Torah-experts and Pharisees became extremely hostile toward him and began to question him closely about many things,
54 lying in wait to catch him in his own words.+