Chapter 11

¹Once as he was praying in a certain place, when he stopped, one of his disciples said to him,

“Master, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

²He said to them,

“When you pray, say, ‘Father, your name be revered! Your kingdom come! ³Give us each day our bread for the day, ⁴and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive anyone who wrongs us; and do not subject us to temptation.’ ”

⁵And he said to them,

“Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to him in the middle of the night, and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, ⁶for a friend of mine has just come to my house after a journey, and I have nothing for him to eat,’ ⁷and he answers from inside, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now fastened, and my children and I have gone to bed; I cannot get up and give you any.’ ⁸I tell you, even if he will not get up and give him some because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rouse himself and give him all he needs. ⁹So I tell you, ask, and what you ask will be given you. Search, and you will find what you search for. Knock, and the door will open to you. ¹⁰For it is always the one who asks who receives, and the one who searches who finds, and the one who knocks to whom the door opens. ¹¹Which of you fathers, if his son asks him for a fish will give him a snake instead? ¹²Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³So if you, bad as you are, know enough to give your children what is good, how much more surely will your Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him for it!”

¹⁴Once he was driving out a dumb demon, and when the demon was gone the dumb man spoke. And the people were amazed. ¹⁵But some of them said,

“It is with the aid of Beelzebub, the prince of the demons, that he drives the demons out.”

¹⁶Others to test him asked him for a sign from heaven. ¹⁷But he knew what they were thinking, and he said to them,

“Any kingdom that is disunited is on the way to destruction, and one house falls after another. ¹⁸And if Satan is disunited, how can his kingdom last? Because you say that I drive out demons with Beelzebub’s aid. ¹⁹But if it is with his aid that I drive out demons, by whose do your sons drive them out? Therefore, they shall be your judges. ²⁰But if it is with the finger of God that I am driving the demons out, then the Kingdom of God has overtaken you. ²¹When a strong man fully armed guards his own dwelling, his property is undisturbed. ²²But when somebody stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he strips him of the arms that he relied on, and divides up the spoils. ²³Anyone who is not with me is against me, and anyone who does not join me in gathering, scatters. ²⁴When a foul spirit goes out of a man, it roams through deserts in search of rest, and when it finds none, it says, ‘I will go back to my house that I left.’ ²⁵And it goes and finds it unoccupied, cleaned, and all in order. ²⁶Then it goes and gets seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there, and in the end the man is worse off than he was before.”

²⁷As he said this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him,

“Blessed is the mother who bore you and nursed you!”

²⁸But he said,

“You might better say, ‘Blessed are those who hear God’s message and observe it!’ ”

²⁹As the crowds pressed a round him, he went on to say,

“This is a wicked age! It demands a sign, and no sign will be given it but the sign of Jonah. ³⁰For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be a sign to this age. ³¹The queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation at the Judgment and will condemn them, for she came from the very ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and there is more than Solomon here! ³²Men of Nineveh will rise with this generation at the Judgment and will condemn it, for they repented at Jonah’s preaching, and there is more than Jonah here. ³³No one lights a lamp and puts it in the cellar or under a peck measure; he puts it on its stand, so that people who come in can see the light. ³⁴Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is sound, your whole body is light, but when it is unsound, your body is dark. ³⁵So take care! Your very light may be darkness! ³⁶If, therefore, your whole body is light with no darkness in it at all, it will all be as light as a lamp makes things for you by its light.”

³⁷When he said this, a Pharisee asked him to lunch with him, and he went to his house and took his place at table. ³⁸The Pharisee noticed that he did not wash before the meal, and he was surprised. ³⁹But the Master said to him,

“You Pharisees clean the outside of cups and dishes, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. ⁴⁰You fools! Did not the Creator of the outside make the inside too? ⁴¹But give your inmost life as charity, and you will immediately find everything clean. ⁴²But alas for you Pharisees! For you pay tithes on mint, rue, and every tiny herb, and disregard justice and the love of God. But you should have observed these, without neglecting the others. ⁴³Alas for you Pharisees! For you love to have the front seat in the synagogues and to be saluted with respect in public places. ⁴⁴Alas for you! For you are like unmarked graves which men tread upon without knowing it.”

⁴⁵At this, one of the experts in the Law said to him,

“Master, when you say that, you affront us too.”

⁴⁶But he said,

“Yes, alas for you experts in the Law too! For you load men with burdens they can hardly carry, and you will not touch them yourselves with a single finger. ⁴⁷Alas for you! For you build monuments for the prophets, whom your forefathers killed. ⁴⁸So you testify to what your fathers did and approve it, for they killed them and you build their monuments. ⁴⁹This is why the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send prophets and apostles to them, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute’— ⁵⁰so that this age may be charged with the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the creation of the world, ⁵¹from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you! This age will be charged with it all! ⁵²Alas for you experts in the Law! For you have taken the key to the door of knowledge, but you have not entered it yourselves, and you have kept out those who tried to enter.”

⁵³After he left the house, the scribes and the Pharisees began to watch him closely and to try to draw him out on many subjects, ⁵⁴plotting to entrap him in something he might say.