“Be prepared, and keep your lamps lit.
Parallel translations
- WEB “Let your waist be dressed and your lamps burning.
- KJV Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning;
- BSB Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning.
- NKJV “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning;
- 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, and set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ —
- Eph 6:14Stand therefore, having the utility belt of truth buckled around your waist, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
- Matt 25:4–10but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
- Isa 5:27No one shall be weary nor stumble among them; no one shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the belt of their waist be untied, nor the strap of their sandals be broken:
- Matt 5:16Even so, let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
- Matt 25:1“Then 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 of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his waist.
- Phil 2:15that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without defect in the middle of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world,
- Prov 31:17She arms her waist with strength, and makes her arms strong.
- 1 Kgs 18:46Yahweh’s hand was on Elijah; and he tucked his cloak into his belt and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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.