Luke 11

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1When he finished praying in a certain place, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.”

2He said to them, “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

3Give us day by day our daily bread.

4Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’”

5He said to them, “Which of you, if you go to a friend at midnight, and tell him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread,

6for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him,’

7and he from within will answer and say, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give it to you’?

8I tell you, although he will not rise and give it to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as many as he needs.

9“I tell you, keep asking, and it will be given you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened to you.

10For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened.

11“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he won’t give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?

12Or if he asks for an egg, he won’t give him a scorpion, will he?

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

14He was casting out a demon, and it was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke; and the multitudes marveled.

15But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of the demons.”

16Others, testing him, sought from him a sign from heaven.

17But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. A house divided against itself falls.

18If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul.

19But if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore will they be your judges.

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

21“When the strong man, fully armed, guards his own dwelling, his goods are safe.

22But when someone stronger attacks him and overcomes him, he takes from him his whole armor in which he trusted, and divides his plunder.

23“He that is not with me is against me. He who doesn’t gather with me scatters.

24The unclean spirit, when he has gone out of the man, passes through dry places, seeking rest, and finding none, he says, ‘I will turn back to my house from which I came out.’

25When he returns, he finds it swept and put in order.

26Then he goes, and takes seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and dwell there. The last state of that man becomes worse than the first.”

27It came to pass, as he said these things, a certain woman out of the multitude lifted up her voice, and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts which nursed you!”

28But he said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and keep it.”

29When the multitudes were gathering together to him, he began to say, “This is an evil generation. It seeks after a sign. No sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah, the prophet.

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

31The Queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and will condemn them: for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, one greater than Solomon is here.

32The men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment with this generation, and will condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, one greater than Jonah is here.

33“No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, that those who come in may see the light.

34The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore when your eye is good, your whole body is also full of light; but when it is evil, your body also is full of darkness.

35Therefore see whether the light that is in you isn’t darkness.

36If therefore your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly full of light, as when the lamp with its bright shining gives you light.”

37Now as he spoke, a certain Pharisee asked him to dine with him. He went in, and sat at the table.

38When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that he had not first washed himself before dinner.

39The Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness.

40You foolish ones, didn’t he who made the outside make the inside also?

41But give for gifts to the needy those things which are within, and behold, all things will be clean to you.

42But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, but you bypass justice and the love of God. You ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.

43Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seats in the synagogues, and the greetings in the marketplaces.

44Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like hidden graves, and the men who walk over them don’t know it.”

45One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying this you insult us also.”

46He said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load men with burdens that are difficult to carry, and you yourselves won’t even lift one finger to help carry those burdens.

47Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.

48So you testify and consent to the works of your fathers. For they killed them, and you build their tombs.

49Therefore also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles; and some of them they will kill and persecute,

50that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation;

51from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary.’ Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.

52Woe to you lawyers! For you took away the key of knowledge. You didn’t enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in, you hindered.”

53As he said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be terribly angry, and to draw many things out of him;

54lying in wait for him, and seeking to catch him in something he might say, that they might accuse him.

Commentary

CHAPTER 11Lu 11:1-13. The Disciples Taught to Pray.1. one, &c.—struck with either the matter or the manner of our Lord's prayers.as John, &c.—From this reference to John, it is possible that disciple had not heard the Sermon on the Mount. Nothing of John's inner teaching (to his own disciples) has been preserved to us, but we may be sure he never taught his disciples to say, "Our Father."

11:1-4 Lord, teach us to pray, is a good prayer, and a very needful one, for Jesus Christ only can teach us, by his word and Spirit, how to pray. Lord, teach me what it is to pray; Lord, stir up and quicken me to the duty; Lord, direct me what to pray for; teach me what I should say. Christ taught them a prayer, much the same that he had given before in his sermon upon the mount. There are some differences in the words of the Lord's prayer in Matthew and in Luke, but they are of no moment. Let us in our requests, both for others and for ourselves, come to our heavenly Father, confiding in his power and goodness.

"\nAnd he said unto them,.... That is Jesus, as the Syriac and Persic versions express, who directed his speech to all the disciples; for though but one of them addressed him, it was in the name of the rest: and besides, the instructions Christ was about to give concerned them all, even those that heard them before, and those that had not:\n\nwhen ye pray, say, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth; the last petition is left out in the Vulgate Latin;\n[See comments on Mt 6:9],\n[See comments on Mt 6:10].\n\n\n "

11:1 Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples - The Jewish masters used to give their followers some short form of prayer, as a peculiar badge of their relation to them. This it is probable John the Baptist had done. And in this sense it seems to be that the disciples now asked Jesus, to teach them to pray. Accordingly he here repeats that form, which he had before given them in his sermon on the mount, and likewise enlarges on the same head, though still speaking the same things in substance. And this prayer uttered from the heart, and in its true and full meaning, is indeed the badge of a real Christian: for is not he such whose first and most ardent desire is the glory of God, and the happiness of man by the coming of his kingdom? Who asks for no more of this world than his daily bread, longing meantime for the bread that came down from heaven? And whose only desires for himself are forgiveness of sins, (as he heartily forgives others,) and sanctification.

"\nGive us day by day our daily bread. Or "for the day"; or "every day", as the Syriac version renders it;\n[See comments on Mt 6:11]\n\n\n "

"\nAnd forgive us our sins,.... Beza's most ancient copy reads "debts", as in [See comments on Mt 6:12]; and which best agrees with the phrase "indebted", after mentioned:\n\nfor we also forgive every one that is indebted to us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil;\n[See comments on Mt 6:12],\n[See comments on Mt 6:13]. The doxology there used, and the word "Amen", are here omitted. Some of the petitions in this prayer are not delivered in the very same words as they are in Matthew. The three first petitions are word for word the same; for though the third petition is different in our translation, it is the same in the original. The fourth and fifth vary: in Matthew the fourth is, "give us this day our daily bread"; here in Luke, "give us day by day our daily bread." The fifth in Matthew is, "and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors"; here, "and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us". And these verbal variations, though the sense is the same, together with the omission of the doxology, and the word "Amen", show, that this prayer was not designed to be an exact form, and to be so used, but as a directory of prayer. I have, in my notes [See comments on Mt 6:9] c. shown the agreement there is between the petitions in this prayer, and some that were made use of among the Jews and have supposed that our Lord took notice of such petitions, which the good people among the Jews frequently used; and which he approved of, and singled out, and put them into the order and method in which they stand, with some alterations for the better, to be a directory to his disciples and followers. Which to suppose, I apprehend, does not at all countenance the making and using stinted forms of prayer; since the petitions used by good men among the Jews, were not used as forms of prayer, but what they were led unto by the Spirit of God from common and constant experience to make use of; just as we may observe now, that good people in different parts, who use no form of prayer, nor have ever heard one another pray, and yet make use of the same petitions, and almost, if not altogether, in the selfsame words, their wants, necessities, cases, and circumstances being the same; and these frequently returning, oblige to a repeated use of them, in the same words, or near unto them. And though forms of prayer might not be in use among the Jews in the times of Christ, yet it is easy to account for it, how Christ came to be acquainted with the petitions in general use with good men; since not only he is God omniscient, and knows all the prayers of his people, both in public and private; but, as man, must know what were used, by his attendance on public worship, and by the private communion he had with the saints and children of God. It must indeed be owned, that forms of prayer very early obtained among the Jews; and if not in Christ's time, yet in the times of his apostles.

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