Jesus teaches about prayer
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📚✭And it happened that as he was praying in a certain place, when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples”. 2 📚And he said to them, “When you pray, say,
Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
3 📚Give us day by day our daily bread.
4 📚And forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone
who is indebted to us✭.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil”.
5 📚✭And he said to them, “Which of you will have a friend, and will go to him at midnight, and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 for a friend of mine on his journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him?’ 7 📚And from inside he will answer and say, ‘Don’t trouble me. The door is now locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you bread.’ 8 📚I say to you, Though he will not get up and give him the loaves, because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will get up and give him as many as he needs✭.
9 📚“And 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. 10 📚For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it will be opened.
11 📚“If a son of any father among you asks for bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a snake instead of a fish? 12 📚Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 📚✭If 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?”
Jesus is slandered by religious leaders
14 📚And he was driving out a demon, and it was mute. And it came about that when the demon had gone out, the mute person spoke. And the people were amazed.
15 📚But some of them said, “He drives out demons through Beelzebub the ruler of the demons”.
16 📚✭And others, testing him, demanded from him a miraculous sign from heaven.
17 📚But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is ruined, and a house divided against a house falls. 18 📚Now if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? I say this because you say I drive out demons through Beelzebub. 19 📚But if I drive out demons through Beelzebub, through whom do your sons drive them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 20 📚But if I drive out demons with the finger of God, without doubt the kingdom of God has come to you. 21 📚When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his possessions are secure, 22 📚But when someone stronger than he comes upon him and overpowers him, he takes from him all that armour in which he trusted, and divides up the spoils. 23 📚He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.
24 📚“When an unclean spirit has gone out of a man, it goes through dry places, looking for rest, and finding none, it says, ‘I will return to my house which I left.’ 25 📚And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. 26 📚Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first”.
Jesus speaks of true blessedness
27 📚✭And as he spoke these things, it happened that a certain woman in the crowd raised her voice, and said to him, “Blessed✭ is the womb that bore you, and the breasts which nursed you”.
28 📚But he said, “Instead, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it”.
Jesus faces an evil generation
29 📚And when even more people had gathered together, he began speaking, “This is an evil generation. They are looking for a miraculous sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. 30 📚For just as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also 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, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and now a greater than Solomon is here. 32 📚The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation, and will condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now a greater than Jonah is here.
33 📚“No one lights a lamp and puts it in a secret place, or under a basket, but on a lampstand, so that those who come in may see the light. 34 📚The light of the body is the eye. Therefore when your eye is good, your whole body is full of light; but when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. 35 📚✭So watch out that the light that is in you is not darkness. 36 📚Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, with no part dark, the whole will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light”.
Jesus reveals the character of the religious leaders
37 📚✭And as he spoke, a certain Pharisee asked him to eat with him. And he went in and sat down to eat. 38 📚And when the Pharisee saw this, he was surprised that he had not first washed before dinner.
39 📚And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but your inner part is full of greed and wickedness. 40 📚You fools! Did not he who made the outside also make the inside? 41 📚✭But give away what is inside as charity, and then all things are clean to you.
42 📚“But woe to you Pharisees! For you give tithes of mint and rue and every kind of herb, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you should have practiced without leaving the other undone.
43 📚“Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the seats of honour in the synagogues, and greetings in the marketplaces.
44 📚✭“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over unaware”.
45 📚Then answered one of the lawyers✭ and said to him, “Teacher, by saying this you are insulting us too”.
46 📚And he said, “Woe to you also, you lawyers! For you load men down with burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not touch those burdens with one of your fingers.
47 📚“Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48 📚In fact, you are giving testimony that you approve of the deeds of your fathers. For indeed they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 📚✭Therefore, the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some persecute, 50 📚so that the blood of all the prophets that has been shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation, 51 📚from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Truly I say to you, it will be required of this generation.
52 📚✭“Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering”.