Lu-ca 11

Lord, teach us to pray

¹Once Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he had finished, one of his disciples asked him, “Lord, teach us how to pray, the way John taught his own disciples.” ²He said to them, “When you pray, say: ‘Father, may your name be honored as holy. May your kingdom come.^{a 3}Each day give us the bread we need.^{b 4}Forgive us our sins, since we also forgive all who owe us. And do not bring us into temptation.’”^cd

The friend at midnight

⁵Then he said to them, “Imagine that one of you has a friend, and you go to his house in the middle of the night and say to him, ‘My friend, lend me three loaves. ⁶Another friend of mine has come to my house from a journey, and I have nothing to set out for him to eat.’ ⁷Would that friend call back from inside, ‘Do not trouble me. The door is already shut for the night, and my children are in bed with me. I cannot get up now to hand you anything’? ⁸I tell you, even if friendship is not enough to get him out of bed to give you the bread, your boldness in asking without shame will get him up, and he will give you as much as you need.^ef

Ask, search, knock

⁹So I tell you: ask, and God will give to you; search, and you will find; knock, and God will open the door for you. ¹⁰For all who ask receive, all who search find, and all who knock have the door opened to them. ¹¹Is there a father among you who would hand his son a snake when the boy asked for a fish?^{g 12}Or if he asked for an egg, would he give him a scorpion? ¹³You are evil, and yet you know how to give your children good gifts. Then how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”^h

By the finger of God

¹⁴Jesus was driving out a demon that had left a man unable to speak. Once the demon was gone, the man spoke. The crowds were amazed. ¹⁵But some of them said, “It is by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, that he drives out the demons.”^{i 16}Others, wanting to test him, kept asking him for a sign from heaven. ¹⁷But he knew what they were thinking, and he said to them, “If a kingdom is torn apart by its own people, it is laid waste, and its houses fall one upon another.^{j 18}If Satan too is split against himself, how can his kingdom last? Yet that is what you are saying: that I drive out the demons by Beelzebul. ¹⁹And if I drive out the demons by Beelzebul, by whose power do your own people drive them out? So they themselves will be the ones to judge you.^{k 20}But suppose it is by God’s finger that I drive the demons out. Then the kingdom of God has already reached you. ²¹As long as a strong man keeps guard over his own palace with all his weapons, his goods are left in peace. ²²But then a man stronger than he is comes against him and wins the fight. He strips away all the armor the strong man was counting on, and shares out the goods he has seized. ²³Anyone who does not stand with me stands against me, and anyone who does not help me gather is scattering.

The unclean spirit returns

²⁴When an unclean spirit has left a person, it wanders through dry, empty places looking for a place to rest. When it finds none, it says, ‘I will go back to my house, where I came from.’ ²⁵It arrives and finds the house swept and tidied.^{l 26}Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and make their home there. In the end that person is worse off than at the start.”

Hearing and keeping God’s word

²⁷While he was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out to him, “Blessed is the woman who carried you in her womb and fed you at her breasts!” ²⁸But he said, “Even more blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.”^m

Something greater than Jonah

²⁹With the crowds pressing in more and more, he began to say, “This generation is an evil one. It looks for a sign, yet the only sign it will be given is the sign of Jonah. ³⁰For just as Jonah was a sign to the people of Nineveh, the Son of Man will be a sign to this generation.^{n 31}At the judgment the queen of the South will stand up with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the far ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom; and here is something greater than Solomon. ³²At the judgment the people of Nineveh will stand up with this generation and condemn it, because they repented when Jonah preached; and here is something greater than Jonah.

Light within

³³A lamp, once lit, is not hidden away in a cellar or put under a basket; it is set on a lampstand, where anyone coming in will see its light.^{o 34}Your body’s lamp is your eye. If your eye is clear, light fills your whole body as well. If your eye is bad, darkness fills your body too.^{p 35}So be careful that the light inside you is not really darkness. ³⁶So if light fills your whole body and no part of it is dark, it will be bright all through, as when a lamp shines on you with its beam.”^q

The inside of the cup

³⁷As he finished speaking, a Pharisee asked him to eat at his home, and he went in and took his place at the table. ³⁸The Pharisee saw that he had not washed before the meal, and it surprised him. ³⁹But the Lord said to him, “You Pharisees clean the cup and the dish on the outside, but your own insides are full of plunder and wickedness. ⁴⁰Foolish people! The one who made the outside made the inside as well, did he not? ⁴¹Rather, give what is inside as gifts to the poor, and then everything is clean for you.^r

How terrible for you

⁴²But how terrible for you Pharisees! You set aside for God a tenth even of mint and rue and every kind of garden plant, yet you pass over justice and the love of God. Justice and love are what you should have practiced, while not neglecting the tenth.^{s 43}How terrible for you Pharisees! You love to sit in the front seats of the synagogues and to be greeted in the marketplaces. ⁴⁴How terrible for you! You are like graves with no marker, and the people who walk over them are unaware of it.”^t

Loads too heavy to carry

⁴⁵One of the experts in the law responded to him, “Teacher, by saying this you are insulting us as well.” ⁴⁶He said, “How terrible for you experts in the law too! You pile on people loads that are hard to carry, and you yourselves will not touch those loads with even one of your fingers. ⁴⁷How terrible for you! You build monuments over the prophets’ graves, yet those prophets died at the hands of your ancestors. ⁴⁸So you are witnesses, and you give your approval to what your ancestors did: they did the killing, and you do the building.^{u 49}That is why the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles. They will kill some of them and hunt down others.’ ⁵⁰And so the blood of all the prophets shed since the world was founded will be charged to this generation, ⁵¹from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who died between the altar and the house of God. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be charged with it.^{v 52}How terrible for you experts in the law! You have carried off the key of knowledge. You have not gone in yourselves, and you have stood in the way of those who were going in.”^w

⁵³When he left that place, the scribes and the Pharisees turned bitterly against him and kept pressing him with questions about many things, ⁵⁴watching for a chance to trap him by his own words.^x