1The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered to him.
2And they saw that some of his disciples were eating their bread with defiled hands, that is, unwashed.
3For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders,
4and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they purify themselves. And there are many other things they have received to hold to: the washing of cups, pitchers, and copper vessels.
5So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with defiled hands?”
6And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
7in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
8You abandon the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
9And he said to them, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!
10For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely be put to death.’
11But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or mother, “Whatever you might have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, a gift dedicated to God),
12then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother,
13thus nullifying the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many similar things.”
14And calling the crowd to him again, he said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand.
15There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile the person.”
17And when he had entered a house away from the crowd, his disciples asked him about the parable.
18And he said to them, “Are you also so without understanding? Do you not perceive that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him,
19because it does not go into his heart but into his stomach, and then goes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)
20And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles the person.
21For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders,
22adulteries, greed, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, arrogance, foolishness.
23All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
24And from there he rose and went away to the region of Tyre. And he entered a house and wanted no one to know it, yet he could not be hidden.
25But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him, and she came and fell at his feet.
26Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she kept asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
27And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
28But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
29And he said to her, “For this statement, you may go; the demon has gone out of your daughter.”
30And when she went home, she found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone.
31Then he departed again from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.
32And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him.
33And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting, he touched his tongue.
34And looking up to heaven, he sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphatha!”—which is, “Be opened!”
35And his ears were opened, and immediately the impediment of his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak plainly.
36And he instructed them to tell no one. But the more he instructed them, the more widely they proclaimed it.
37And they were astonished beyond all measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
Open in the interactive reader →