The Prodigal Son (KJV) — Luke 15:11-32
The full King James text of the parable, ready to read or print, followed by the story scene by scene in plain English — including the half of it that retellings usually drop, where the brother who never left refuses to come in.
Luke 15:11-32, King James Version
11And he said, A certain man had two sons:
12And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.
13And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
14And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
15And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
16And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
17And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
18I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
19And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
20And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
21And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
22But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
23And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
24For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
25Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing.
26And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant.
27And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.
28And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him.
29And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends:
30But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.
31And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.
32It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.
King James Version — public domain. biblegarden.net/prodigal-son
Key Verses
The lines people come looking for, with the reference beside each one.
“took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living”
The whole ruin in one clause. “Substance” is his share of the estate, and “riotous living” is the King James phrase for spending it wildly — what later editions summed up in the word “prodigal,” which the passage itself never uses.
“And when he came to himself”
The hinge of the story, and it happens in a pigsty rather than a temple. Before he repents he simply thinks clearly for the first time.
“And he arose, and came to his father”
Six words, no ceremony. He had rehearsed a speech (verses 18-19); what the verse records is that he got up and went.
“But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him”
Five verbs in a row, all of them the father's. The son is still at a distance and has not said a word — the welcome starts before the apology does.
“For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found”
The father's verdict, and the sentence Jesus repeats at the very end of the parable (verse 32) with one word changed: “this thy brother.”
“Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine”
Said to the elder brother, outside, in the dark. The father goes out twice in this parable, and this is the second time.
Who Jesus Was Talking To
The parable does not begin at verse 11. It begins at verse 1, with a crowd and a complaint: “Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.” Everything that follows in Luke 15 is an answer to that sentence.
Jesus answers it three times over. A shepherd loses one sheep out of a hundred and goes after it. A woman loses one coin out of ten and sweeps the house until she finds it. A father loses one son out of two. The proportions tighten with each telling — one in a hundred, one in ten, one in two — and each story ends the same way: what was lost is found, and there is a celebration.
The first two parables come with the moral attached: “joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth” (15:7), “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth” (15:10). The third has no such line. Instead it grows a second half that the other two do not have, about an older brother who hears the celebration from outside and will not go in — which is precisely the position the men in verse 2 were standing in.
The Parable, Scene by Scene
Twenty-two verses, seven movements. Each entry below quotes the King James clause it explains.
Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me
A man with two sons is asked for an inheritance while he is still alive to be asked. Under the law the firstborn took a double portion (Deuteronomy 21:17), so of two sons the younger one's share is a third — and the KJV notes that the father “divided unto them his living,” meaning both sons were settled with, not just the one who asked. That detail matters later, when the elder brother complains about a father who has already handed him the rest.
took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living
Luke gives the collapse in four verses and never describes the spending. What he describes is the sequence: the money goes, then a famine arrives, then the son hires himself out to feed swine — unclean animals under the law (Leviticus 11:7), which places him about as far from home as a Jewish listener could picture. Verse 16 is the floor: he would gladly have eaten the pods the pigs were eating, and nobody gave him anything.
And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger
The turn begins as plain arithmetic — his father's hired men eat better than this. Then it becomes something else: “I have sinned against heaven, and before thee.” Notice what he plans to ask for. Not to be forgiven and not to be restored, but to be downgraded: “make me as one of thy hired servants.” A hired servant is a paid outsider, not a member of the household. He is prepared to come home as an employee.
And he arose, and came to his father
The father sees him “yet a great way off,” which means he was watching the road. Then five verbs fall in a row — saw, had compassion, ran, fell on his neck, kissed him — and every one of them belongs to the father. The son gets out only the first half of his rehearsed speech: compare verse 19 with verse 21 and the line “make me as one of thy hired servants” is missing. He never gets to offer it.
Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet
The father does not answer the confession at all; he starts giving orders to the servants. The robe, the ring and the shoes have been read since the early church as marks of standing rather than comforts — the garment kept for a guest of honour, a signet ring of the kind entrusted to a member of the household, and footwear that a servant of that house would not have worn. Whatever the details, the direction is unmistakable: the son asked to be made a hired servant and is dressed as a son. The fatted calf follows, and with it a feast the whole estate can hear.
And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him
Half the parable is still to come, and it is about the brother who never left. He hears the music from outside, learns what has happened from a servant rather than his father, and refuses to go in — so the father comes out a second time. His complaint is precise and not obviously unfair: years of service, no commandment broken, not so much as a young goat for a party with his friends. And listen to how he refers to the man inside: “this thy son,” not “my brother.”
Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine
The father corrects two things without conceding the complaint. First the elder son has lost nothing — the remaining estate was already his. Second, “this thy son” is answered with “this thy brother.” Then the parable stops. We are never told whether the elder son goes in, and that is not an oversight: Jesus is telling this to men who were standing outside the party, murmuring, at the start of the chapter.
What the Parable Means
The welcome arrives before the apology.The son works out a speech in the far country and gets halfway through it. The father is already running by then, and the orders he gives are about restoring standing rather than settling accounts — a robe, a ring, shoes, a feast. Nothing in the text says the son earned any of it, and nothing says he was made to.
Repentance here is not an emotion.The KJV records it as a change of mind followed by a change of address: “when he came to himself… I will arise and go to my father… And he arose, and came to his father.” He thinks, he decides, he walks. Whatever he felt on the road, Luke does not report it.
Both sons are outside at some point. That is the shape of the parable, and it is why the second half exists. One son leaves and comes back; the other never leaves and will not come in. The father goes out to both. The elder brother’s grievance is not that his father is wrong about the facts — the money really was wasted — but that a welcome he did not authorise has been given to someone he no longer counts as a brother.
Nothing was taken from the one who stayed.“Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.” The estate had already been divided in verse 12; the fatted calf comes out of a share that was the elder son’s to begin with, and he is being invited to spend it on his own brother. Mercy shown to someone else costs him nothing except the accounting he had been keeping.
The story is deliberately unfinished. The father’s last words are a plea, and no reply is recorded. Jesus stops mid-conversation, leaving the men who murmured in verse 2 holding the ending. It is the same technique the gospel uses elsewhere — a question handed back to the person who asked it.
The King James Wording
Ten places where the 1611 English is carrying more than it looks like it is.
The word never appears in Luke 15 — or anywhere else in the King James Bible. It comes from the chapter summaries printed above the text in traditional KJV editions, and from the Latin prodigus, wastefully extravagant. The parable's own name for what the son did is “riotous living.”
Not his house but his livelihood — the estate he lived on. The Greek is bios, life in the sense of the means of living. The father divides up what he lives on.
Wasteful, unrestrained spending. The KJV uses “riotous” for the same idea in Proverbs 23:20 and 28:7. It says nothing about what the money went on; the elder brother supplies that detail in verse 30, and he was not there.
“Fain” means gladly. He would gladly have eaten the pig fodder — which tells you he was not permitted to.
The pods commonly identified as carob, fed to livestock. Edible in the sense that they keep an animal alive, not in the sense that anyone chose them.
Day labourers paid a wage — the lowest tier of the household and, crucially, not part of it. The son's plan is to trade sonship for employment.
The 1611 spelling of music, kept in modern KJV printings. The elder son hears the party before anyone tells him about it.
A young goat — a modest animal, deliberately set against the fatted calf killed for his brother. The complaint is about proportion.
Pleaded with, urged. The old spelling of entreated. The father does not summon the elder son; he goes out and begs him to come in.
Fitting, proper — the sense preserved in “meet and right.” The father's last word is not that the feast is generous but that it is the appropriate thing to do.
Luke 15:1-10 — What Comes First
The ten verses before the parable: the complaint that prompts it, and the two shorter parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin that set its pattern.
1Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.
2And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.
3And he spake this parable unto them, saying,
4What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?
5And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
6And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.
7I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.
8Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?
9And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.
10Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.
Read Next
Six verses that sit behind the parable or carry it forward.
The complaint the parable answers. Everything in Luke 15 is told to men who objected that Jesus kept the wrong company.
Luke 15:2The moral of the lost sheep, stated plainly — which is exactly what Jesus withholds at the end of the third parable.
Luke 15:7The Good Samaritan “had compassion” — the same King James phrase used of the father in Luke 15:20, and in both parables it is the moment someone crosses the distance.
Luke 10:33Luke's summary of the whole gospel in one line, using the parable's own word: lost.
Luke 19:10The image the parable turns into a story — God's mercy described as a father's, centuries before Luke 15.
Psalms 103:13Paul's version of “when he was yet a great way off”: the love arrives first, not after the change.
Romans 5:8A verse a day
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Keep Exploring
Luke keeps the parables no other gospel has: five chapters earlier, the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 uses the same King James phrase for the turn — “had compassion.” For the teaching this parable puts into a story, read the Beatitudes that open the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord’s Prayer at its centre, where the forgiven are asked to forgive. More on that in Bible verses about forgiveness. A verse each morning arrives with the verse of the day.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the parable of the prodigal son in the Bible?
Luke 15:11-32, in the King James Version and every other translation. It is the third of three parables Jesus tells in the same conversation — the lost sheep (15:3-7), the lost coin (15:8-10) and the lost son (15:11-32) — and it is found only in Luke's gospel.
What is the parable of the prodigal son about?
A man has two sons. The younger asks for his share of the inheritance, leaves for a far country and wastes it, and ends up feeding pigs and envying their food. He decides to go home and offer himself as a hired servant, but his father sees him a long way off, runs to him, and restores him as a son with a robe, a ring, shoes and a feast. The elder brother, who never left, refuses to come in to the party, and the parable ends with the father outside pleading with him — and no answer recorded.
Does the word “prodigal” appear in the KJV text?
No. The word “prodigal” appears nowhere in the King James Bible. It comes from the chapter summaries printed above the text in traditional KJV editions, and ultimately from the Latin prodigus, meaning wastefully extravagant. The passage itself says the son “wasted his substance with riotous living” (Luke 15:13).
What does “And he arose, and came to his father” mean?
It is Luke 15:20, and it records the son doing the thing he decided on in verse 18 — “I will arise and go to my father.” The King James gives it no ceremony: he got up and he went. What follows in the same verse is the father's response, which begins while the son is still “a great way off” and before he has said anything at all: “his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”
What do the robe, the ring and the shoes mean?
They have been read since the early church as marks of standing rather than comforts: the “best robe” as the garment kept for a guest of honour, the ring as a signet of the kind entrusted to a member of the household, the shoes as what distinguishes a son from a barefoot servant. The passage does not explain them, but it is clear about the direction. The son had planned to ask to be made a hired servant (Luke 15:19); before he can say it, his father has him dressed as a son. That is the point of the three orders in verse 22.
Why was the elder brother angry?
Because the arithmetic looked wrong to him. He had served for years without breaking a commandment and had never been given so much as a young goat for a party with his friends, while the brother who spent a third of the estate got the fatted calf (Luke 15:29-30). The father does not argue with the facts. He answers that nothing has been taken from the elder son — “thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine” — and then corrects the one word that gave the complaint away: the elder son said “this thy son,” and the father replies “this thy brother.”
What are the husks that the swine did eat?
Animal fodder — pods commonly identified as carob, fed to livestock. Luke 15:16 says the son “would fain have filled his belly” with them, meaning he would gladly have eaten them, “and no man gave unto him.” Between working with swine, which the law counts unclean (Leviticus 11:7), and envying their food, the verse is describing the lowest point the story can reach.
Who was Jesus telling the parable to?
Luke states it before the first parable begins: “Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them” (Luke 15:1-2). All three parables of Luke 15 answer that complaint — which is why the last of them spends its final eight verses on a son who stays outside the celebration objecting that his father has welcomed the wrong person.
Why does the parable end without saying what the elder brother did?
The first two parables of Luke 15 end with the moral stated outright — “joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.” The third ends with the father speaking and no application attached and no answer from the son he is speaking to. The men listening had begun the chapter standing apart from the company Jesus kept, murmuring about it. The parable leaves the last move to them.