Chapter 7

¹The Pharisees gathered about him with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem. ²They had noticed that some of his disciples ate their food without first giving their hands a ceremonial washing to purify them. ³For the Pharisees and all the Jews observe the rules handed down from their ancestors, and will not eat until they have washed their hands in a particular way, ⁴and they will not eat anything from the market without first purifying it by sprinkling it, and they have a number of other observances which have come down to them, in the way of washing cups, pitchers, and basins. ⁵And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him,

“Why do your disciples not observe the rules handed down by our ancestors, but eat food without purifying their hands?”

⁶But he said to them,

“It was about you hypocrites that Isaiah prophesied so finely, in the words,

“ ‘This people honor me with their lips,

Yet their hearts are far away from me.

⁷But their worship of me is all in vain,

For the lessons they teach are but human precepts.’

⁸“You give up what God has commanded and hold fast to what men have handed down.

⁹“How skilful you are,” he said to them, “in nullifying what God has commanded in order to observe what has been handed down to you. ¹⁰For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and again, ‘Whoever abuses his father or mother must be put to death.’ ¹¹But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Anything of mine that might have been of use to you is Korban,*#“) that is, consecrated to God, ¹²you let him off from doing anything more for his father or mother, ¹³and so you nullify what God has said by what you have handed down. You have many such practices.”

¹⁴He called the people to him again and said to them,

“Listen to me, all of you, and understand this. ¹⁵Nothing that goes into a man from outside can pollute him. It is what comes out of a man that pollutes him.”

¹⁷When he had left the crowd and gone home, his disciples asked him what he meant by this figure. ¹⁸And he said to them,

“Have not even you any understanding then? Do you not see that nothing that goes into a man from outside can pollute him, ¹⁹since it does not go into his heart but into his stomach and then is disposed of?” So he declared all food clean. ²⁰He went on to say,

“It is what comes out of a man that pollutes him. ²¹For it is from inside, from men’s hearts, that designs of evil come; immorality, stealing, murder, adultery, ²²greed, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, abusiveness, arrogance, folly— ²³all these evils come from inside, and they pollute a man.”

²⁴He left that place and went to the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon. And he went into a certain house, and wanted no one to know of it. And he could not keep it secret, ²⁵but a woman whose little daughter was possessed by a foul spirit immediately heard about him and came and threw herself at his feet. ²⁶Now the woman was a Greek, of Syrophoenician birth. And she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. ²⁷He said to her,

“Let the children first eat all they want, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

²⁸But she answered,

“True, sir! and still the dogs under the table eat what the children leave!” ²⁹He said to her,

“If you can say that, go home; the demon has left your daughter.”

³⁰And she went home and found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

³¹He left the neighborhood of Tyre again and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, crossing the district of the Ten Towns. ³²And they brought to him a man who was deaf and hardly able to speak, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. ³³He took him off by himself away from the crowd, and put his fingers in the man’s ears, and touched his tongue with saliva. ³⁴And he looked up to heaven and sighed, and said to him,

“Ephphatha!”—which means “Open.”

³⁵And his ears were opened and his tongue was released and he talked plainly. ³⁶And Jesus forbade them to tell anyone about it, but the more he forbade them the more they spread the news far and wide. ³⁷And people were utterly amazed, and said,

“How well he has done everything! He even makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak!”