Bible Strands
Mark 9:29
Jesus answered, “This kind cannot come out, except by prayer.”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jesus answers his disciples privately after they failed to cast out a demon from a boy, responding to their own frustrated question (Mark 9:28).
The words — γένος (genos, "kind") identifies a category of unclean spirit, and οὐδενί (oudení, "by nothing") in the shorter Greek reading states the limitation bluntly: this kind comes out by nothing [but prayer].
The thread — Matthew 17:20 attributes the same failure to "little faith" rather than lack of prayer, while James 5:15 ties prayer offered in faith to physical restoration.
Why it lands — It places a hard ceiling on human effort in spiritual conflict and names the only lever: prayer. It asks the reader to stop diagnosing their own inadequacy and start depending on God.
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
And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.
Cross-references
- James 5:15 And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick. The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.
- Daniel 9:3 So I turned my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and petition, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.
- Matthew 17:20 “Because you have so little faith,” He answered. “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
- Ephesians 6:18 Pray in the Spirit at all times, with every kind of prayer and petition. To this end, stay alert with all perseverance in your prayers for all the saints.
- 2 Corinthians 12:8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.
- 2 Corinthians 11:27 in labor and toil and often without sleep, in hunger and thirst and often without food, in cold and exposure.
- 1 Kings 17:20 Then he cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have You also brought tragedy on this widow who has opened her home to me, by causing her son to die?”
- Luke 11:26 Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and dwell there. And the final plight of that man is worse than the first.”
- 1 Corinthians 9:27 No, I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.
- Acts 14:23 Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church, praying and fasting as they entrusted them to the Lord, in whom they had believed.