Luke 11:4-27

⁴and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who wrongs us; and take us not into temptation.’”

⁵Jesus also said to them, “Suppose that one of you who has a friend were to go to him in the middle of the night and say ‘Friend, lend me three loaves,

⁶for a friend of mine has arrived at my house after a journey, and I have nothing to offer him;’

⁷And suppose that the other should answer from inside ‘Do not trouble me; the door is already fastened, and my children and I are in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything’;

⁸I tell you that, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is a friend, yet because of his persistence he will rouse himself and give him what he wants.

⁹“And so I say to you — Ask, and your prayer will be granted, search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.

¹⁰For the person who asks receives, everyone who searches finds, and to the person who knocks the door will be opened.

¹¹What father among you, 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?

¹³If you, then, naturally wicked though you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

¹⁴Once Jesus was driving out a dumb demon, and, when the demon had gone out, the dumb man spoke. The people were amazed at this;

¹⁵but some of them said, “He drives out demons by the help of Beelzebul, the chief of the demons”;

¹⁶while others, to test him, asked him for some sign from the heavens.

¹⁷Jesus himself, however, was aware of what they were thinking, and said to them, “Any kingdom wholly divided against itself becomes a desolation; and a divided house falls.

¹⁸So, too, if Satan is wholly divided against himself, how can his kingdom last? Yet you say that I drive out demons by the help of Beelzebul.

¹⁹But, if it is by Beelzebul's help that I drive out demons, by whose help is it that your own sons drive them out? Therefore they will themselves be your judges.

²⁰But, if it is by the hand of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God must already be upon you.

²¹When a strong man is keeping guard, fully armed, over his own mansion, his property is in safety;

²²but, when one still stronger has attacked and overpowered him, he takes away all the weapons on which the other had relied, and divides his spoil.

²³Whoever who is not with me is against me, and the person who does not help me to gather is scattering.

²⁴No sooner does a foul spirit leave someone, than it passes through places where there is no water, in search of rest; and finding none, it says ‘I will go back to the home which I left’;

²⁵but, on coming there, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order.

²⁶Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in, and make their home there; and the last state of that person proves to be worse than the first.”

²⁷As Jesus was saying this, a woman in the crowd, raising her voice, exclaimed, “Happy was the mother who bore you and nursed you!”