Passage

Luke 17.21

"nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or, 'There it is!' For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst." (Luke 17:21, NASB95)

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"19. And he said unto him, Arise, and go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole. 20. And being asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God cometh, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:"

"21. neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you."

"22. And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. 23. And they shall say to you, Lo, there! Lo, here! go not away, nor follow after them:" (Luke 17:19-23, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"19. Then he said to him, "Get up, and go your way. Your faith has healed you." 20. Being asked by the Pharisees when God's Kingdom would come, he answered them, "God's Kingdom doesn't come with observation;"

"21. neither will they say, 'Look, here!' or, 'Look, there!' for behold, God's Kingdom is within you.""

"22. He said to the disciples, "The days will come, when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23. They will tell you, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Don't go away, nor follow after them," (Luke 17:19-23, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"19. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole. 20. And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: ^{with: or, with outward shew}"

"21. Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. ^{within you: or, among you}"

"22. And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. 23. And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them." (Luke 17:19-23, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"19. and he said to him, 'Having risen, be going on, thy faith hath saved thee.' 20. And having been questioned by the Pharisees, when the reign of God doth come, he answered them, and said, 'The reign of God doth not come with observation;"

"21. nor shall they say, Lo, here; or lo, there; for lo, the reign of God is within you.'"

"22. And he said unto his disciples, 'Days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and ye shall not behold [it]; 23. and they shall say to you, Lo, here; or lo, there; ye may not go away, nor follow;" (Luke 17:19-23, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: Jesus addressing the Pharisees who have asked when the kingdom of God will come
Audience: hostile Pharisees (immediate); Luke's wider Theophilus / Gentile-Christian readership
Location: during Jesus's travel toward Jerusalem (Lk 9:51 onward; 17:11 places it on the Galilee-Samaria border)
Time period: events c. AD 30; Luke composed c. AD 60-80

Synthesis

Luke 17:21 contains one of the most-quoted and most-misquoted phrases in the Gospels: the Greek ἐντὸς ὑμῶν (entos hymōn), rendered "within you" in the KJV and ASV tradition and "in your midst" / "among you" in most modern translations. The translation question matters because the verse has been weaponized in modern New Age and SBNR ("spiritual but not religious") settings as proof that Jesus taught an interior-divine-self spirituality. The context decides the reading: Jesus is answering hostile Pharisees, not disciples, and "the kingdom of God is interior to you" said to opponents of his ministry is the opposite of what the Lukan Jesus says about them elsewhere. The "in your midst" reading takes the kingdom as present in Christ himself, standing in front of them.

Theological reading

The Greek phrase entos hymōn admits both renderings. Entos can mean "within" (interior to) or "among / in the midst of" (in the company of). Classical and Hellenistic Greek attest both senses. Pure lexicon cannot settle the question; context decides.

The context decisively favors "in your midst." Three observations:

The addressees are Pharisees, identified explicitly in 17:20. Throughout Luke, the Pharisees are characterized as opponents whose interior is corrupt (Lk 11:39: "now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness"). The Lukan Jesus telling these same Pharisees that the kingdom is inside them would contradict his consistent assessment of their interior. The "in your midst" reading, by contrast, fits: the kingdom is present in Jesus, standing in front of them, and they are missing it.
The context is eschatological timing, not interior spirituality. The Pharisees ask when the kingdom comes. Jesus's answer is not by observation (no outward signs to track) and behold, it is already here in your midst. This is the inaugurated-eschatology point Jesus makes elsewhere (cf. Matthew 12.28 "if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you"). The kingdom is present in his ministry now, with consummation still to come.
The immediately following verses (17:22-37) are emphatically future-eschatological, with the days of the Son of Man, the Noahic and Lot parallels, and the cosmic warning "as the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky." A Jesus who in 17:21 had taught a wholly interior kingdom would not pivot to apocalyptic-cosmic kingdom-coming language in the next sentence. The dialectic of already present in Jesus + still to be consummated cosmically fits the data.

The New Age inversion. Modern New Age popularizers (Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth; the broader SBNR genre) cite Luke 17:21 as proof that Jesus taught the divine kingdom is the inner divine self awaiting awakening. The move requires (a) ignoring the addressees, (b) ignoring the question being asked, (c) ignoring the surrounding eschatological frame, and (d) reading "within you" as interior-mystical rather than as the more natural "in your midst" rendering the context demands. See New Age Spiritualism for the equivocation-defeater treatment.

A modest concession. Even on the strongest "in your midst" reading, the verse does not rule out interior dimensions of kingdom presence; the New Testament elsewhere does affirm that the Spirit indwells believers (Rom 8:9-11, 1 Cor 6:19). The point is not that Jesus excludes interior spirituality but that Luke 17:21 specifically is not the proof text for it. The verse is about kingdom-presence in Christ's own person, addressed to those who refuse to recognize him.

Key words

No Strong's-tagged lexicon matches yet recorded for this passage. The contested term ἐντὸς ὑμῶν (G1787 entos + G4771 sy / hymōn) does not have a curated lexicon entry; see Lexicon Roadmap for the build-priorities list.

Theological themes

Inaugurated eschatology. The kingdom is already present in Jesus's ministry; its consummation is still future.
Christological presence. Where Jesus is, the kingdom is. The verse is implicitly Christological.
Translation question with apologetic weight. The KJV "within you" reading is preserved by some traditions but inverted in modern misuse.
Anti-New-Age defeater. Luke 17:21 cannot bear the weight of modern interior-divine-self readings.
Pharisee blindness. The kingdom stood in front of the Pharisees; they could not see it because their criterion was the wrong kind of observation.

Cross-references

Matthew 12.28, Jesus's parallel claim that the kingdom has come upon his hearers through his Spirit-empowered ministry.
Luke, book hub for the wider Lukan eschatological framework.
The immediately following Lk 17:22-37, the apocalyptic discourse that frames 17:21 as inaugurated rather than purely interior.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.