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Mark

7:1Now the Pharisees and some of the scripture scholars came from Jerusalem and gathered around Jesus,7:2and they saw some of his disciples eating bread without first having ritually cleansed their hands.7:3(The Pharisees and all the Judeans never eat without first ritually washing their hands, according to the traditions of their ancestors.7:4If they have just returned from the marketplace, they perform a ritual bath before eating. They also observe many other rituals such as washing cups, pitchers, saucepans, and even beds.)

7:5So the Pharisees and scripture scholars asked Jesus, “Why is it that your disciples don’t observe the tradition of the elders? They eat bread with unclean hands.”

7:6“Isaiah prophesied accurately about you, you pedants!” Jesus replied. “As it is written,

“These people give me lip service but their hearts are far away.7:7In vain they pay their respects, for their teachings are their own and not mine.”

7:8“You discard the command of God and cling to human tradition!”

7:9Then he continued: “You really do push aside the command of God in order to establish your own tradition.7:10For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother; whoever speaks abusively against their father or mother must be put to death.’7:11But you say, ‘You can tell your father or mother that you don’t have to support them if the money is a gift offering which you get to keep’,7:12so you get them off the hook from helping their own father or mother!7:13You thereby invalidate the Word of God for the tradition you invent. And you do a lot of things like that.”

7:14Once again he called the crowd to come to him, and he said, “Listen to me and understand:7:15It isn’t what’s outside of a person and goes into them that contaminates them, but what comes out of them.”7:167:17And when he left the crowd and went into the house, his disciples asked him about the parable.7:18And he replied, “Are you stupid too? Don’t you understand that whatever comes from outside of a person and goes into them cannot contaminate them?7:19It doesn’t go into their heart but into their bowels and then the toilet.” (In saying this, he was declaring all food ‘clean’.)

7:20Then he added, “What comes out of a person is what contaminates them.7:21For it is out of people’s hearts that come depraved thinking, promiscuity, theft, murder,7:22adultery, greed, evil, treachery, vice, ‘the evil eye’, slander, arrogance, and empty-headedness.7:23All of these evil things come out from the inside and contaminate a person.”

7:24Leaving there, Jesus went into the region of Tyre. He entered a house and didn’t want anyone to know, but he couldn’t avoid it.7:25Right away a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him and fell down at his feet.7:26She was a non-Judean from Syro-Phoenicia, and she asked if he could throw out the demon from her daughter.

7:27But he said to her, “First let the children eat their fill; it isn’t right to take the children’s bread and toss it to puppies.”

7:28“But sir,” she replied, “Even the puppies under the table eat the scraps the children drop!”

7:29“Good answer!” Jesus said to her. “Because of it, you may go; the demon has come out of your daughter.”7:30She went to her home and found the little one placed on a bed, free of the demon.

7:31Leaving the region of Tyre, once again he went through Sidon and the Ten Cities to the Sea of Galilee.7:32They brought him someone who was deaf and speech-impaired,1 pleading with him to place his hand on them.7:33He took the person away from the crowd, put his fingers into the person’s ears, and then spit and touched the person’s tongue.7:34Then he looked up to the sky and sighed deeply, saying, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened up!”).7:35Immediately they were opened up, and the person could hear and their tongue was loosened, and they began to talk normally.

7:36Jesus commanded them not to say a thing, but the more he did so, the more they spread the news.7:37They were beyond awestruck and said, “He does everything well! The deaf hear and the mute talk!”