Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
2 He said to them, “When you pray, say:
‘Father, may your name be treated as holy. May your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day the bread we need.[1] 4 And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who owes us. And do not bring us into testing.’”
5 Then he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even if he won’t get up and give him anything because he’s his friend, still, because of the man’s shameless persistence, he will get up and give him whatever he needs.[2]
9 “So I tell you: ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 Which father among you, if your son asks for a fish, will hand him a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will hand him a scorpion? 13 So if you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father from heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
14 Now Jesus was driving out a demon that had made a man mute. When the demon came out, the mute man spoke, and the crowds were amazed. 15 But some of them said, “He drives out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of demons.” 16 Others, testing him, kept demanding a sign from heaven.
17 But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a house divided against a house falls. 18 If Satan is also divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say I drive out demons by Beelzebul. 19 Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own people drive them out? So they will be your judges. 20 But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.[3]
21 “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own estate, his possessions are safe. 22 But when one stronger than he attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor the man trusted in and divides up the plunder. 23 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
24 “When an unclean spirit comes out of a person, it passes through waterless places looking for rest, and finding none, it says, ‘I will return to my house that I left.’ 25 And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. 26 Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”
27 As he was saying these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Fortunate is the womb that carried you and the breasts you nursed at!”
28 But he said, “Fortunate rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.”
29 As the crowds were pressing in, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. 31 The Queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon — and look, something greater than Solomon is here.[4] 32 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they turned from their ways at the preaching of Jonah — and look, something greater than Jonah is here.
33 “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a hidden place or under a basket. Instead, they put it on a stand so that those who come in can see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light. But when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. 35 So watch out that the light in you is not darkness. 36 If, then, your whole body is full of light, with no part dark, it will be completely lit — as when a lamp shines on you with its brightness.”
37 While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat a meal with him. So Jesus went in and reclined at the table. 38 The Pharisee was surprised when he saw that Jesus did not first wash before the meal.[5]
39 But the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 Fools! Didn’t the one who made the outside also make the inside? 41 But give what is inside to the poor, and look — everything is clean for you.
42 “But woe to you Pharisees! You tithe mint and rue and every garden herb, yet you neglect justice and the love of God. These things you should have practiced, without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! You love the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you! You are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”
45 One of the legal experts answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too.”
46 And he said, “Woe to you legal experts as well! You load people down with burdens hard to carry, and you yourselves don’t even touch the burdens with one of your fingers. 47 Woe to you! You build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48 So you are witnesses, and you approve of the deeds of your fathers — because they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 For this reason the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets and messengers, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that the blood of all the prophets shed since the world was made may be charged against this generation — 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation.[6]
52 “Woe to you legal experts! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter, and you have hindered those who were entering.”
53 When Jesus left there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, 54 lying in wait to catch something from his mouth.
Notes
Note 1. The Greek adjective epiousios is nearly unique — it appears almost nowhere else in Greek, so its exact sense is uncertain. It has been rendered “daily,” “for the coming day,” and “needed to exist.” The traditional “daily” is a workable guess, not a settled reading. ↩
Note 2. The Greek word anaideia is built from a negative prefix and aidos, “shame” or “regard for propriety” — so literally “shamelessness.” It appears only here in the New Testament. Interpreters divide over whose shamelessness is meant: the caller’s brazen persistence, or the sleeper’s wish to avoid disgrace. The Greek does not settle it. ↩
Note 3. This phrase echoes Exodus 8:19, where Pharaoh’s own magicians, unable to reproduce a plague, concede, “This is the finger of God.” Matthew’s version of this saying instead reads “by the Spirit of God.” ↩
Note 4. This is the queen of Sheba, who in 1 Kings 10 travels to test Solomon’s wisdom. Sheba is generally located in southwestern Arabia, in what is now Yemen, though Ethiopian tradition claims her as its own and names her Makeda. “The ends of the earth” marks how far she came. ↩
Note 5. This washing was a ceremonial rinsing of the hands for ritual purity, not hygiene — a practice modeled on priestly Temple customs. It was part of Pharisaic tradition rather than a command written in the law of Moses. ↩
Note 6. Abel is the first murder in Genesis; the most likely Zechariah is the priest stoned “in the court of the house of the Lord” in 2 Chronicles 24 — the last book in the traditional Hebrew ordering. So the span “from Abel to Zechariah” reaches from the first to the last martyr in the Hebrew scriptures. Matthew’s parallel adds “son of Berachiah,” which has long puzzled readers, since that detail fits a different Zechariah. ↩