Mark 7:1-37
7 And the Pharisees and some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered about him,
2 and, seeing that some of his disciples ate their bread with “common”—that is, unwashed—hands
3 * (for the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they have washed their hands to the elbow, insisting on the tradition of the elders;
4 ** and when they come in from the marketplace they do not eat unless they have sprinkled themselves, and there are many other things which it is traditional with them to insist on, rinsings of cups and cans and kettles),
5 the Pharisees and the scribes put the question to him “Why do your disciples not walk in conformity with the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with common hands?”
6 But he said to them “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written ‘This people honors me with the lips, but their hearts are remote from me;
7 and they adore me vainly, inculcating teachings that are commands of men.’
8 You let go the commandment of God and insist on the tradition of men.”
9 And he said to them “You do fine work setting God’s commandment aside so as to keep your tradition!
10 For Moses said ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Let him who uses bad language to his father or mother suffer death’;
11 but you say ‘If a man says to his father or mother “Whatever you get any good of from me is korban”’ [that is, “a gift”]—
12 you will no longer let him do anything for his father or mother,
13 nullifying God’s word by your tradition that you have handed down; and you do many things of a similar kind.”
14 And he called the crowd to him again and said to them “Hear me, all of you, and understand:
15 there is nothing from outside a man, going into him, that can defile him, but it is what goes out of a man that defiles the man.”
16 ——
17 And when he came indoors away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the paradox;
18 and he said to them “Are you too so unable to see a point? do you not see that anything that goes into a man from outside cannot defile him
19 because it does not go into his heart but into his stomach and out into the latrine?”—making all foods clean.
20 And he said “What goes out of a man, that defiles the man.
21 For from inside, from men’s hearts, go out evil designs, unchastities, thefts, murders,
22 adulteries, overreachings, villainies, trickery, brutality, stinginess, abusive language, arrogance, foolery,—
23 * all these wicked things go out from inside, and do defile the man.”
24 And he left there and went away to the territory of Tyre, and went into a house and wanted nobody to know of it; and he could not escape notice,
25 but at once, hearing about him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit came and threw herself down at his feet.
26 And the woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by race; and she was asking him to expel the demon from her daughter,
27 and he was saying to her “Let the children have their fill first, for it is not a good thing to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
28 But she answered him “Yes, sir, even the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.”
29 And he said to her “Because of those words, go; the demon has gone out of your daughter.”
30 And she went home and found the child down on the couch, and the demon gone out.
31 And he went out of the territory of Tyre again, and came through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee at a point in the middle of the territory of the Decapolis.
32 And they brought him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech, and appealed to him to lay his hand on him;
33 and he took him away from the crowd by himself and ran his fingers into his ears, and spat and touched his tongue,
34 and looked up into the sky and groaned and said to him “Ethpethah,” that is “Be opened.”
35 * And his ears were opened, and at once the tie of his tongue was undone and he spoke rightly.
36 And he charged them not to tell anybody; but the more he charged them, all the more they proclaimed it.
37 * And they were supremely astonished, saying “He has done well in everything: he even makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.”
Footnotes
^ 7:3 (to the elbow) Unc.
^ 7:4 Var. have dipped or have rinsed off
^ 7:4 Var. adds and couches
^ 7:24 Var. Tyre and Sidon
^ 7:35 Var. omits at once
^ 7:37 Var. in everything, as he even
