The sons who cast out demons are Jewish exorcists, mentioned in Acts 19:13, and described by Flavius Josephus (Antiquities VIII.ii.5) as travelling through the land. When Jesus calls these Jewish exorcists your sons,
he is not speaking of biological sons, but of members of the Pharisees’ own community—or the Jewish nation as a whole. Since the Pharisees did not accuse these exorcists of working with Satan, this shows their hostility to Jesus.
Jesus highlights the inconsistency of ascribing his miraculous actions to Satan, while those of the Jewish exorcists are not. Flavius Josephus1 writes of Jewish exorcists who traveled through the land, and we also read of them in Acts 19:13.
Jesus refers to these Jewish exorcists with the phrase your sons.
He is not here speaking of biological sons, however, but members of the Pharisees’ own community—or the Jewish nation as a whole.2
The Pharisees rightly saw in these exorcisms a grace that God had shown to his people; they had never attributed these exorcisms to the devil. That is why those who cast out demons, respected as they are, will declare that the Pharisees are inconsistent and biased, prejudiced even, when they speak of a pact between Jesus and Beelzebul on the basis of these exorcisms.3
27 Et si moi, je chasse les démons par Béelzébul, vos fils, par qui les chassent-ils? C'est pourquoi ils seront eux-mêmes vos juges.