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Luke 4:1-4
New Catholic Bible
Luke 4:1-4
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 4
Jesus Is Tempted by the Devil.[a] 1 Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert 2 for forty days, where he was tempted by the devil. During that time he ate nothing, and at the end of it he was famished.
3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to be transformed into bread.” 4 Jesus answered him: “As it states in Scripture:
‘Man does not live by bread alone.’ ”
Footnotes
- Luke 4:1 By means of images, we are shown the drama Jesus experienced in his conscience, his struggle to follow with determination the great options of his existence. He knows the temptations for immediate success, domination, and prestige, the temptations to which Israel succumbed during its sojourn in the desert and that remain the lot of the Church, every believer, and every person. Jesus refuses to use his powers for his own benefit but accepts poverty and destitution; he does not seek the glory of a political Messiah and does not yield to the idols of power. He turns away from the seduction of prestige; when he goes to Jerusalem it will not be to mount the pinnacle of the temple but to carry the supreme trial of the cross.
There is, in this choice without compromise, a radical recognition of God and the true values he is forever giving us to reflect upon. The victory of Christ over the forces of evil foreshadows the power of his mission (see Lk 10:18; 11:22; 12:16), which is achieved through patience on the cross and the triumph of the Resurrection after the final attacks of the spirit of evil (see Lk 22:3, 53). To live with Christ is to accept this struggle humbly and resolutely.
