What Truly Makes a Person Unclean

The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus. ² They noticed that some of his disciples were eating bread with unclean — that is, unwashed — hands. ³ (The Pharisees, and in fact all the Jews, won’t eat unless they wash their hands with a fistful of water, holding to the tradition of the elders.^{[1] 4} And when they come from the marketplace, they don’t eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions they have received and hold to — washings of cups and pitchers and copper pots and dining couches.)

⁵ So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why don’t your disciples live by the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unclean hands?”

⁶ He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied well about you hypocrites, as it is written:

‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far, far from me. ⁷ They worship me in vain, their teachings are only human rules.’

⁸ You let go of the command of God and hold on to the tradition of men.”

⁹ And he said to them, “You have a fine way of setting aside the command of God so you can keep your own tradition. ¹⁰ For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death.’ ¹¹ But you say that if a man tells his father or mother, ‘Whatever you might have gained from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift),^{[2] 12} you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. ¹³ So you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

¹⁴ He called the crowd to him again and said, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand. ¹⁵ There is nothing outside a person that can make them unclean by going into them. Rather, the things that come out of a person are what make them unclean.”

¹⁷ When he had left the crowd and gone into the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. ¹⁸ And he said to them, “Are you so without understanding too? Don’t you see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot make them unclean, ¹⁹ because it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then goes out into the latrine?” (In saying this, he declared all foods clean.)

²⁰ He went on, “What comes out of a person — that is what makes them unclean. ²¹ For from within, out of the human heart, come evil thoughts, forbidden sex, thefts, murders, ²² adulteries, greed, wickedness, deceit, shamelessness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. ²³ All these evil things come from within and make a person unclean.”

²⁴ Jesus got up and went from there to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and didn’t want anyone to know he was there, but he couldn’t escape notice.^{[3] 25} Right away a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet. ²⁶ The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she kept asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter.^[4]

²⁷ He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it isn’t right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”^[5]

²⁸ But she answered him, “Lord, even the little dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

²⁹ And he said to her, “Because of this answer, go. The demon has left your daughter.”

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

³¹ Then he left the region of Tyre and went through Sidon toward the Sea of Galilee, into the region of the Decapolis. ³² And they brought him a man who was deaf and could barely speak, and they begged him to lay his hand on him.

³³ He took him aside, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spat and touched his tongue. ³⁴ Looking up to heaven, he sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphatha” — that is, “Be opened.”

³⁵ And his ears were opened, and his tongue was freed, and he began to speak plainly. ³⁶ Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them, the more widely they proclaimed it. ³⁷ They were utterly astonished, saying, “He has done everything well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”