Bible Strands
Matthew 17:21
Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
King James Version
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jesus speaks this remark to His disciples immediately after diagnosing their failed exorcism as a lack of faith, placing it between His teaching on mustard-seed faith in Matthew 17:20 and His prediction of His betrayal in Matthew 17:22.
The words — Τοῦτο γένος (Touto genos) translates literally to "this kind," while ἐκπορεύεται (ekporeuetai) means "goes out," structuring the claim that certain spiritual resistance yields only to specific disciplines.
The thread — The KJV text explicitly ties this resistance to "prayer and fasting," a paired discipline that appears in Daniel 9:3, Esther 4:16, and Acts 13:2–3 where urgent spiritual action is coupled with abstention from food.
Why it lands — The text states that some spiritual conditions resist ordinary authority and require deliberate prayer and fasting, asking the reader to assess whether their faith relies on disciplined dependence rather than mere verbal command.
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.