Luke 11:9-39

⁹“So I say to you: ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

¹⁰Because everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

¹¹And which father among you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if a fish, will he give him a snake instead of a fish?

¹²Or if he asks for an egg, will he give him a scorpion?

¹³If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

¹⁴Then He was casting out a demon, and it was mute. As a result, when the demon had gone out the mute spoke! And the crowds marveled.

¹⁵But some of them said, “It's by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, that he casts out demons.”

¹⁶While others kept asking Him for a sign from heaven, testing.

¹⁷But He, knowing their thoughts, said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against itself falls.

¹⁸So if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?—since you say I cast out demons by Beelzebul!

¹⁹Further, if I am casting out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.

²⁰But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, surely the Kingdom of God has come upon you.

²¹“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own dwelling, his possessions are safe.

²²But when someone stronger than he attacks, he overcomes him, takes away all his armor in which he trusted, and distributes his spoils.

²³“He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.

²⁴“Whenever an unclean spirit goes out from a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest; and not finding any it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came out.’

²⁵And coming it finds it swept and put in order.

²⁶Then it goes and picks up seven other spirits, more malignant than itself, and they go in and live there; so the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.”

²⁷And then, as He was saying these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!”

²⁸But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it!”

²⁹Now as the crowds were increasing, He began to say: “This is a malignant generation. It keeps wanting a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

³⁰Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of the Man be to this generation.

³¹The queen of the South will be raised up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.

³²The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation, and they will condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.

³³“No one, having lit a lamp, puts it in hiding or under a basket, but on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light.

³⁴The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, whenever your ‘eye’ is good, your whole body is illuminated. But when it is malignant, your body also is darkened.

³⁵So see to it that the ‘light’ in you not be darkness.

³⁶If then your whole body is full of light, not having any part dark, the whole will be illuminated, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.”

³⁷Now as He spoke, a certain Pharisee invited Him to eat with him. So He went in and reclined.

³⁸But the Pharisee, noticing that He did not first wash before the meal, was critical.

³⁹So the Lord said to him: “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but your inside is full of greed and malignancy.