The chapter
Simply A disciple asks to be taught to pray, and gets a short prayer and two arguments for keeping at it. Then Jesus casts out a demon and is accused of doing it by the prince of demons, which he answers by pointing out that a kingdom at war with itself falls. He refuses to give a sign except the sign of Jonah. Finally he goes to dinner at a Pharisee's house, does not wash first, is disapproved of, and answers with six statements beginning WOE, three about Pharisees and three about lawyers.
Context The prayer at verses 2 to 4 is not the same length in every edition, and the difference is two whole petitions. Nine of the thirteen offered editions give seven: your name, your Kingdom, your will on earth as in heaven, bread, forgiveness, do not lead us into temptation, deliver us from evil. Four give five, dropping the will and the deliverance, and those four are Segond 1910, the Riveduta 1927, the Petrus Canisiusvertaling and the Vietnamese 1934. They are the same four at verse 2 and again at verse 4, so each edition is consistent with itself. The two French editions land on opposite sides: Segond gives five petitions and the Bible libre gives seven. Matthew 6:9 to 13 can be opened here and has the long form. This file reports the split and does not rule, because which text the earliest copies carried is a manuscript question the corpus does not hold.
Verses 1-13
Simply One of the disciples asks to be taught to pray, as John taught his. He gives them the prayer. Then a small story: a man knocks on a friend's door at midnight because a traveller has arrived and he has no bread, and the friend, already in bed with his children, gets up anyway, not out of friendship but because the man will not stop knocking. Keep asking, Jesus says, keep looking, keep knocking. A father asked for a fish does not hand over a snake.
Context The last line of the section is different in the two Gospels that have it, and the difference is the thing asked for. Matthew 7:11, which can be opened here, ends how much more will your Father give GOOD THINGS to those who ask him. Verse 13 ends how much more will he give THE HOLY SPIRIT. The argument is identical and the answer to the prayer is not the same. The friend at midnight, at verses 5 to 8, is only in this book, and it is worth reading for what it does NOT say: the man does not get up out of love. The word at verse 8 is persistence, and the story is told about someone behaving badly and giving in.
Verses 14-36
Simply After a mute man speaks, some say Jesus drives out demons by Beelzebul, and others want a sign from heaven. He answers that a divided kingdom collapses, so if Satan is fighting himself his kingdom is finished, and asks by whose power their own people drive out demons. A woman in the crowd calls his mother blessed, and he answers that the blessed ones are those who hear God's word and keep it. He says this generation will get no sign except Jonah, and that the Queen of the South and the men of Nineveh will judge it.
Context Two sentences here say something different from their parallels, and both are open in this app. At verse 20 he casts out demons by GOD'S FINGER; at Matthew 12:28 it is BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD. And the sign of Jonah is explained in two ways. Matthew 12:40 makes it the three days and nights in the fish, which points at the tomb. Verse 30 makes it Jonah HIMSELF BECOMING A SIGN TO THE NINEVITES, and verse 32 says what they did about it, which was repent at his preaching. So in one book the sign is a burial and in this one it is a sermon that worked on foreigners. Verse 28 is also a small correction that is easy to miss: a woman blesses the body that carried him and he moves the blessing to anyone who listens, which is the same answer he gave his family at 8:21.
Verses 37-54
Simply A Pharisee invites him to eat and is surprised he does not wash first. Jesus answers that they clean the outside of the cup while the inside is full of greed, and then says WOE six times: to Pharisees who tithe herbs and skip justice, who like the front seats, and who are like unmarked graves people walk over without knowing; and to lawyers who tie up loads they will not lift a finger for, who build tombs for the prophets their fathers killed, and who took away the key of knowledge and went in neither themselves nor let anyone else. They leave furious and start trying to trap him.
Context There are six woes here, at verses 42, 43, 44, 46, 47 and 52, split evenly between Pharisees and lawyers. Matthew 23 has seven, and they are all aimed at scribes and Pharisees. The other difference is the room. Matthew 23:1 is a public speech; this is a dinner, at a table, addressed to the host who invited him, which makes verse 53 a description of guests leaving a meal. The attribution matters and this file states it plainly: these are arguments inside first century Judaism, spoken by a Jewish teacher to other Jewish teachers about how their own law should be kept, and verse 42 says they OUGHT to have tithed as well as done justice. They are not a verdict on a people. The same care is written into Matthew 23 in this app for the same reason.