Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G Message"When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest. Not finding any, it says, 'I will return to the house I left.'"
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.G"When the unclean spirit goes out of a person, it passes through waterless regions seeking rest; and not finding any, it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.'"
KJV
King James VersionWhen 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.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleWhen 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.’
Footnotes
ἀνύδρων τόπων ("waterless regions") reflects a well-established Second Temple Jewish cosmology in which demons inhabit desert wastelands — dry, chaotic, uninhabitable places beyond the edge of human settlement (cf. Lev 16:8–10, where the scapegoat is sent into the wilderness; Isa 34:14, where Azazel and desert creatures haunt desolate Edom; 1 Enoch's elaborate demonic geography). The inability of the unclean spirit to find "rest" in the desert carries ironic resonance: Israel too found no rest in the wilderness until it submitted to YHWH. The demon, like the lost, seeks habitation — and returns to fill the vacuum left when the house was swept but not filled.
