Mark - Chapter 7

¹ The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered round him,

² and they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with unclean hands, that is, without washing them.

³ For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, keep the tradition of the elders and never eat without washing their arms as far as the elbow;

⁴ and on returning from the market place they never eat without first sprinkling themselves. There are also many other observances which have been handed down to them to keep, concerning the washing of cups and pots and bronze dishes.

⁵ So the Pharisees and scribes asked him, 'Why do your disciples not respect the tradition of the elders but eat their food with unclean hands?'

⁶ He answered, 'How rightly Isaiah prophesied about you hypocrites in the passage of scripture: This people honours me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me.

⁷ Their reverence of me is worthless; the lessons they teach are nothing but human commandments.

⁸ You put aside the commandment of God to observe human traditions.'

⁹ And he said to them, 'How ingeniously you get round the commandment of God in order to preserve your own tradition!

¹⁰ For Moses said: Honour your father and your mother, and, Anyone who curses father or mother must be put to death.

¹¹ But you say, "If a man says to his father or mother: Anything I have that I might have used to help you is Korban (that is, dedicated to God),"

¹² then he is forbidden from that moment to do anything for his father or mother.

¹³ In this way you make God's word ineffective for the sake of your tradition which you have handed down. And you do many other things like this.'

¹⁴ He called the people to him again and said, 'Listen to me, all of you, and understand.

¹⁵ Nothing that goes into someone from outside can make that person unclean; it is the things that come out of someone that make that person unclean.

¹⁶ Anyone who has ears for listening should listen!'

¹⁷ When he had gone into the house, away from the crowd, his disciples questioned him about the parable.

¹⁸ He said to them, 'Even you -- don't you understand? Can't you see that nothing that goes into someone from outside can make that person unclean,

¹⁹ because it goes not into the heart but into the stomach and passes into the sewer?

²⁰ And he went on, 'It is what comes out of someone that makes that person unclean.

²¹ For it is from within, from the heart, that evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft, murder,

²² adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly.

²³ All these evil things come from within and make a person unclean.'

²⁴ He left that place and set out for the territory of Tyre. There he went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there; but he could not pass unrecognised.

²⁵ At once a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him and came and fell at his feet.

²⁶ Now this woman was a gentile, by birth a Syro-Phoenician, and she begged him to drive the devil out of her daughter.

²⁷ And he said to her, 'The children should be fed first, because it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to little dogs.'

²⁸ But she spoke up, 'Ah yes, sir,' she replied, 'but little dogs under the table eat the scraps from the children.'

²⁹ And he said to her, 'For saying this you may go home happy; the devil has gone out of your daughter.'

³⁰ So she went off home and found the child lying on the bed and the devil gone.

³¹ Returning from the territory of Tyre, he went by way of Sidon towards the Lake of Galilee, right through the Decapolis territory.

³² And they brought him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they asked him to lay his hand on him.

³³ He took him aside to be by themselves, away from the crowd, put his fingers into the man's ears and touched his tongue with spittle.

³⁴ Then looking up to heaven he sighed; and he said to him, 'Ephphatha,' that is, 'Be opened.'

³⁵ And his ears were opened, and at once the impediment of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly.

³⁶ And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they proclaimed it.

³⁷ Their admiration was unbounded, and they said, 'Everything he does is good, he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.'

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