Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning.
Parallel translations
- WEB “Let your waist be dressed and your lamps burning.
- KJV Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning;
- NKJV “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning;
- NASB “Be prepared, and keep your lamps lit.
- NLT “Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning,
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Be dressed and ready with lamps burning, prepared for action. Disciples are to live in constant readiness for their Lord's return.
Overview
Using the image of servants girded for service with lamps lit, Jesus calls for watchful preparedness. This is the posture of those awaiting their master, alert and at their duty. It introduces His teaching on watchfulness for the return of the Son of Man, urging believers to live each day ready to meet Him.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- 1 Pet 1:13Therefore prepare your minds for action. Be sober-minded. Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
- Eph 6:14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness arrayed,
- Matt 25:4–10But the wise ones took oil in flasks along with their lamps.
- Isa 5:27None of them grows weary or stumbles; no one slumbers or sleeps. No belt is loose and no sandal strap is broken.
- Matt 5:16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
- Matt 25:1“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.
- Isa 11:5Righteousness will be the belt around His hips, and faithfulness the sash around His waist.
- Phil 2:15so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as lights in the world
- Prov 31:17She girds herself with strength and shows that her arms are strong.
- 1 Kgs 18:46And the hand of the LORD came upon Elijah, and he tucked his cloak into his belt and ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Christ at the center
Luke shows Jesus the Savior for all — outsiders, the poor, the nations — the one who, on the Emmaus road, opened all the Scriptures to show they were about himself.
How Luke 12:35 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.