Luke 11:5-49

⁵Jesus told his followers a picture story, to teach them how to pray. He said, “Think about this. A man is going on a long trip, and at night he comes to the house where his cousin lives, so he visits him to stay the night with him. But his cousin hasn’t got any food to give him. So his cousin goes out in the middle of the night to his friend’s house, and he knocks on the door and he calls out, ‘Hey, friend, can you give me some food? You see, my cousin has just come, and I’ve got no food to give him. Can you give me some bread?’

⁷But his friend has already locked his door and gone to bed, with his wife and his kids, and he doesn’t want to get up, so he says, ‘Don’t humbug me now. I’m in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’

⁸But if that man keeps on knocking and asking for bread, after a while his friend will get up and give him everything he asks for. He will not do it because they are friends. He will do it because that man keeps on asking him.

⁹So I’m telling you this. Keep on asking God for what you need, and he will give it to you. Keep on looking for what you need, and God will help you find it. Or if something is stopping you, like there is a door that is shut and you can’t get in, keep knocking at that door and God will open it for you.

¹⁰You see, everyone that asks God for something will get it. Everyone that looks for something will find it. God will open the door for everyone that knocks on it.

¹¹Some of you are fathers. If your kid asks you for a fish to eat, will you give him a cheeky snake instead? No, of course not.

¹²Or if your kid asks you for an egg, will you give him a cheeky scorpion instead? No, of course not.

¹³You see, you might be bad, but you always give good things to your kids. Well, your Father in heaven is a lot better than you, so he is always sure to give you good things. He will send the Holy Spirit to everyone that asks him.”

³⁷Jesus was talking to the people, and a man that belonged to the mob called Pharisees asked him to come to his place for dinner. The Pharisee mob were very strong for the Jewish law.

³⁸The Pharisees made a rule, that whenever anyone wanted to eat a meal, they first had to wash their hands. But Jesus didn’t follow that rule. He didn’t wash his hands. The Pharisee man was shocked.

³⁹So Jesus said to him, “You Pharisee mob are like somebody that only cleans the outside of cups and plates. You only do good things if people can see you, like you are good on the outside. But you are really dirty on the inside. You are greedy, and you are always thinking in your heads about doing very bad things.

⁴⁰Look, you are really stupid. You forget that God made the inside of you as well as the outside. He can see everything that is inside your heads.

⁴¹The right way is like this. You have to think in your heads about poor people and you have to be sorry for them, and you have to give them the things they need. Then God will say that you are clean, on the inside as well as on the outside.

⁴²You mob follow God’s law that says you have to give him a little bit of everything you get. That little bit is one part out of every 10, and we call it a tithe. You do that for everything you get, even the little plants that grow in your garden. But you don’t do the important things that God wants everyone to do. So God will make trouble for you Pharisee mob. You see, you have to be fair to other people, and you have to love God. These are the important things that you have to do, and then you can keep on giving God a proper tithe.

⁴³Yes, God will make trouble for you Pharisee mob. You try to get people to think you are important. Whenever you go to a meeting place you want the good seats that are for important people. And whenever you walk around the shopping places you want people to say hello to you in a good way, the way they talk to important people.

⁴⁴So God will make trouble for you mob. You are like graves that nobody marked. People walk on that ground, but they don’t know that there is a dead body under their feet. You are like that. You get people to think you are good, and they don’t know that you are bad on the inside.”

⁴⁵Then a Jewish law teacher said to Jesus, “Hey, Teacher, you are saying bad things about us, too.”

⁴⁶Jesus said, “That’s right, you mob are just as bad, and God will make trouble for you law teachers too. You make a lot of hard rules, and you make people follow all those rules. You are too hard on people. It is like you are making them carry a really heavy load. But you don’t help them at all. You don’t even move one of your fingers to help them.

⁴⁷Yes, God will make trouble for you law teacher mob. A long time ago, your grand-fathers killed the men that told everyone God’s messages, and they buried them. And now, you mob put pretty little stone buildings there to remember the place where they buried them.

⁴⁸In that way you show that you agree with the bad things your grand-fathers did.

⁴⁹Listen, God is wise, so he said, ‘I will pick men to tell everyone my messages, and I will pick men to be my close followers, and I will send them to the people. But the people will kill some of them, and they will hurt some of them.’