Luke 11:14–26

Jesus and Beelzebul

¹⁴Jesus was driving out a demon that could not talk; and when the demon went out, the man began to talk. The crowds were amazed, ^15*but some of the people said, “It is Beelzebul, the chief of the demons, who gives him the power to drive them out.”

^16*Others wanted to trap Jesus, so they asked him to perform a miracle to show that God approved of him. ¹⁷But Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he said to them, “Any country that divides itself into groups which fight each other will not last very long; a family divided against itself falls apart. ¹⁸So if Satan’s kingdom has groups fighting each other, how can it last? You say that I drive out demons because Beelzebul gives me the power to do so. ¹⁹If this is how I drive them out, how do your followers drive them out? Your own followers prove that you are wrong! ²⁰No, it is rather by means of God’s power that I drive out demons, and this proves that the Kingdom of God has already come to you.

²¹“When a strong man, with all his weapons ready, guards his own house, all his belongings are safe. ²²But when a stronger man attacks him and defeats him, he carries away all the weapons the owner was depending on and divides up what he stole.

^23*“Anyone who is not for me is really against me; anyone who does not help me gather is really scattering.

The Return of the Evil Spirit

²⁴“When an evil spirit goes out of a person, it travels over dry country looking for a place to rest. If it can’t find one, it says to itself, ‘I will go back to my house.’ ²⁵So it goes back and finds the house clean and tidy. ²⁶Then it goes out and brings seven other spirits even worse than itself, and they come and live there. So when it is all over, that person is in a worse state than he was at the beginning.”