Matthew 15:1-39
15 * Then scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem approached Jesus saying
2 “Why do your disciples violate the tradition of the elders? for they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”
3 And he answered them “Why do you too violate the commandment of God because of your tradition?
4 for God said ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Let him who uses bad language to his father or mother suffer death’;
5 but you say ‘Whoever says to his father or mother “Whatever you get any good of from me is dedicated”
6 * shall not honor his father or his mother’; and you have nullified God’s word because of your tradition.
7 Hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you,
8 ‘This people honors me with the lips, but their hearts are remote from me;
9 and they adore me vainly, inculcating teachings that are commands of men.’”
10 And he called the crowd to him and said to them “Listen and understand:
11 it is not what comes into the mouth that defiles the man, it is just what goes out of the mouth that defiles the man.”
12 Then the disciples came to him and said “Do you know that the Pharisees were staggered when they heard the saying?”
13 And he answered “Every plantation that my Heavenly Father did not set out shall be uprooted.
14 Let them be: they are blind guides of blind men, and if a blind man is guiding a blind man they will both fall into a pit.”
15 But Peter answered him, “Expound the parable to us.”
16 And he said “Are you, too, still unable to see a point?
17 do you not see that anything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is discharged into a latrine?
18 but what goes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and these defile the man.
19 For from the heart come evil designs, murders, adulteries, unchastities, thefts, false testimonies, abusive language:
20 these things are what defile the man; but eating with unwashed hands does not.”
21 And Jesus went out from there and withdrew to the parts about Tyre and Sidon.
22 And lo, a Canaanite woman had come out of that territory and was screaming “Son of David, sir, take pity on me; my daughter is grievously demon-ridden”;
23 but he made no answer to her. And his disciples approached him and asked him “Send her off, for she is screaming after us”;
24 but he answered “I was not sent to any but the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
25 And she came and did him reverence, saying “Help me, sir”;
26 but he answered “It is not a good thing to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
27 * But she said “Yes, sir—for the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
28 Then Jesus answered her “Woman, great is your faith; have it as you will.” And her daughter was healed from that moment.
29 And Jesus passed from there to the Sea of Galilee, and went up on the mountainside and sat there;
30 and there came to him great crowds having with them cripples, mutilated men, blind men, dumb men, and many others, and threw them down at his feet; and he cured them,
31 so that the crowd wondered at seeing dumb men speaking, mutilated men sound, and cripples walking and blind men seeing, and glorified the God of Israel.
32 But Jesus called his disciples to him and said “I feel for the crowd, because it is now three days they have been staying with me and not had anything to eat; and I do not want to dismiss them fasting, for fear they should grow faint on the road.”
33 And the disciples said to him “Where are we to get so much bread in the wilderness as to give such a crowd their fill?”
34 and Jesus said to them “How much bread have you?” and they said “Seven cakes, and a few little fish.”
35 And he instructed the crowd to take their places on the ground,
36 and took the seven cakes and the fishes, and gave thanks and broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples to the crowds,
37 and they all ate and had their fill; and they took up what was left over of fragments, seven full hampers—
38 and it was four thousand men, apart from women and children, that ate.
39 And he dismissed the crowds and got into the boat and came to the territory of Magadan.
Footnotes
^ 15:1 Or scribes and Pharisees came to Jesus from Jerusalem
^ 15:6 Var. omits or his mother Var. God’s law
^ 15:27 Or Yes, sir; for even the dogs
