Luke 11:24

When an unclean spirit comes out of a man, it passes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — Jesus addresses His opponents during a discourse, immediately following His declaration that anyone who does not gather with Him scatters. He uses this illustration to explain the spiritual danger of empty neutrality.

The words — ἀκάθαρτον (akatharton) = unclean; πνεῦμα (pneuma) = spirit. The phrase denotes a demonic entity that actively seeks rest after being expelled from a person.

The thread — Matthew 12:43 records the identical scenario. 1 Peter 5:8 parallels the spirit’s restless wandering with the devil’s prowling to find a victim.

Why it lands — The text states the spirit returns to find the house swept clean and put in order. The passage demands recognition that mere external removal of evil without positive spiritual occupation leaves a vacuum for greater danger.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Greek words

King James Version

When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.

Cross-references

Matthew 12:43 When an unclean spirit comes out of a man, it passes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it.
Job 2:2 “Where have you come from?” said the LORD to Satan. “From roaming through the earth,” he replied, “and walking back and forth in it.”
1 Peter 5:8 Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Psalms 63:1 A Psalm of David, when he was in the Wilderness of Judah. O God, You are my God. Earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You. My body yearns for You in a dry and weary land without water.
Job 1:7 “Where have you come from?” said the LORD to Satan. “From roaming through the earth,” he replied, “and walking back and forth in it.”
Mark 5:10 And he begged Jesus repeatedly not to send them out of that region.
Isaiah 44:3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and currents on the dry ground. I will pour out My Spirit on your descendants, and My blessing on your offspring.
Isaiah 57:20 But the wicked are like the storm-tossed sea, for it cannot be still, and its waves churn up mire and muck.
Ephesians 2:2 in which you used to walk when you conformed to the ways of this world and of the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience.
Isaiah 48:22 “There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.”