| 1 | Then the Pharisees, with certain Scribes who had come from Jerusalem, came to Him in a body. |
| 2 | They had noticed that some of His disciples were eating their food with 'unclean' (that is to say, unwashed) hands. |
| 3 | (For the Pharisees and all the Jews--being, as they are, zealous for the traditions of the Elders--never eat without first carefully washing their hands, |
| 4 | and when they come from market they will not eat without bathing first; and they have a good many other customs which they have received traditionally and cling to, such as the rinsing of cups and pots and of bronze utensils, and the washing of beds.) |
| 5 | So the Pharisees and Scribes put the question to Him: 'Why do your disciples transgress the traditions of the Elders, and eat their food with unclean hands?' |
| 6 | 'Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites,' He replied; 'as it is written, ''This People honour Me with their lips, while their hearts are far away from Me: |
| 7 | But idle is their devotion while they lay down precepts which are mere human rules.' |
| 8 | 'You neglect God's Commandment: you hold fast to men's traditions.' |
| 9 | 'Praiseworthy indeed!' He added, 'to set at nought God's Commandment in order to observe your own traditions! |
| 10 | For Moses said, 'Honour thy father and thy mother' and again, 'He who curses father or mother, let him die the death.' |
| 11 | But *you* say, 'If a man says to his father or mother, It is a Korban (that is, a thing devoted to God), whatever it is, which otherwise you would have received from me--' |
| 12 | And so you no longer allow him to do anything for his father or mother, |
| 13 | thus nullifying God's precept by your tradition which you have handed down. And many things of that kind you do.' |
| 14 | Then Jesus called the people to Him again. 'Listen to me, all of you,' He said, 'and understand. |
| 15 | There is nothing outside a man which entering him can make him unclean; but it is the things which come out of a man that make him unclean.' |
| 16 | [] |
| 17 | After He had left the crowd and gone indoors, His disciples began to ask Him about this figure of speech. |
| 18 | 'Have *you* also so little understanding?' He replied; 'do you not understand that anything whatever that enters a man from outside cannot make him unclean, |
| 19 | because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and passes away ejected from him?' By these words Jesus pronounced all kinds of food clean. |
| 20 | 'What comes out of a man,' He added, 'that it is which makes him unclean. |
| 21 | For from within, out of men's hearts, their evil purposes proceed--fornication, theft, murder, adultery, |
| 22 | covetousness, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, reviling, pride, reckless folly: |
| 23 | all these wicked things come out from within and make a man unclean.' |
| 24 | Then He rose and left that place and went into the neighbourhood of Tyre and Sidon. Here He entered a house and wished no one to know it, but He could not escape observation. |
| 25 | Forthwith a woman whose little daughter was possessed by a foul spirit heard of Him, and came and flung herself at His feet. |
| 26 | She was a Gentile woman, a Syro-phoenician by nation: and again and again she begged Him to expel the demon from her daughter. |
| 27 | 'Let the children first eat all they want,' He said; 'it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.' |
| 28 | 'True, Sir,' she replied, 'and yet the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps.' |
| 29 | 'For those words of yours, go home,' He replied; 'the demon has gone out of your daughter.' |
| 30 | So she went home, and found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. |
| 31 | Returning from the neighbourhood of Tyre, He came by way of Sidon to the Lake of Galilee, passing through the district of the Ten Towns. |
| 32 | Here they brought to Him a deaf man that stammered, on whom they begged Him to lay His hands. |
| 33 | So Jesus taking him aside, apart from the crowd, put His fingers into his ears, and spat, and moistened his tongue; |
| 34 | and looking up to Heaven He sighed, and said to him, 'Ephphatha!' (that is, 'Open!') |
| 35 | And the man's ears were opened, and his tongue became untied, and he began to speak perfectly. |
| 36 | Then Jesus charged them to tell no one; but the more He charged them, all the more did they spread the news far and wide. |
| 37 | The amazement was extreme. 'He succeeds in everything he attempts,' they exclaimed; 'he even makes deaf men hear and dumb men speak!' |