Psalms 51:11
Psalms 51:1111Cast me not away from Your presence; take not Your Holy Spirit from me.
JWs read David's plea — "do not take your holy spirit away from me" — as evidence that the holy spirit can be withdrawn from a servant of Jehovah, fitting their pneumatology of the spirit as active force conditionally present. The verse is sometimes applied to baptised members under reproof to warn that personal sin can interrupt the spirit's blessing.
David's prayer reflects the Old Covenant Spirit-economy — the Spirit came on selected leaders for empowering tasks () and could be withdrawn (, immediately after the Spirit comes on David, the same Spirit departs from Saul). Jesus expressly inaugurates a different mode in - 17 — "He will be with you forever... He abides with you and will be in you". Pentecost inaugurates a new arrangement in which the Spirit is given as the seal and pledge of the believer's inheritance () — sealed for the day of redemption, not until the next slip-up. Paul's letters never threaten Spirit-withdrawal as discipline; they warn against grieving () and quenching () — language that treats the Spirit as a present person being mistreated, not a fluid that drains away. The "sin blocks the spirit from the household" framing borrows David's Old Covenant prayer and applies it to a New Covenant reality the prayer was never written for.