Mark 6:10

6:10 He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the area.

Mark 13:33

13:33 Watch out! Stay alert! For you do not know when the time will come.

Mark 13:37

13:37 What I say to you I say to everyone: Stay alert!”


sn Jesus telling his disciples to stay there in one house contrasts with the practice of religious philosophers in the ancient world who went from house to house begging.

tc The vast majority of witnesses (א A C L W Θ Ψ Ë1,13 Ï lat sy co) have καὶ προσεύχεσθε after ἀγρυπνεῖτε (agrupneite kai proseucesqe, “stay alert and pray”). This may be a motivated reading, influenced by the similar command in Mark 14:38 where προσεύχεσθε is solidly attested, and more generally from the parallel in Luke 21:36 (though δέομαι [deomai, “ask”] is used there). As B. M. Metzger notes, it is a predictable variant that scribes would have been likely to produce independently of each other (TCGNT 95). The words are not found in B D 2427 a c {d} k. Although the external evidence for the shorter reading is slender, it probably better accounts for the longer reading than vice versa.