Mark 7

¹The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus. ²They noticed that some of his disciples were eating their bread with "common" hands—that is, without ritual washing. ³(For the Pharisees and all the Judeans do not eat unless they wash their hands thoroughly, clinging to the tradition of the elders. ⁴When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they perform a ritual dipping. There are many other traditions they have received and cling to: the ritual dipping of cups, jugs, copper kettles, and dining couches.) ⁵So the Pharisees and the scribes questioned him: “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but instead eat their bread with common hands?”

⁶He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied beautifully about you performers, just as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the mere requirements of humans.’ ⁸You have abandoned the commandment of God to cling to the tradition of humans.”

⁹And he said to them, “Fine job you do setting aside the commandment of God so that you can maintain your own tradition! ¹⁰For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘The one who speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death.’ ¹¹But you say that if someone tells their father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have received from me is Korban’ (which means a gift dedicated to God), ¹²then you no longer allow them to do anything for their father or mother. ¹³Thus you nullify the word of God through your tradition which you have handed down. And you do many other things like this.”

¹⁴After calling the crowd to him again, he said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand. ¹⁵There is nothing outside a person that can make them ‘common’ by entering into them. Rather, it is the things coming out of a person that make them ‘common.’”

¹⁷When he had left the crowd and entered a house, his disciples began questioning him about this riddle. ¹⁸He said to them, “Are you also so without understanding? Don’t you realize that everything entering a person from the outside cannot make them common? ¹⁹Because it does not enter the heart, but the stomach, and then passes out into the latrine.” (In saying this, he declared all foods clean.)

²⁰He continued, “It is what comes out of a person that makes them common. ²¹For from within, out of the human heart, come evil reasonings: sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, ²²adulteries, greeds, wickednesses, deceit, indecency, an ‘evil eye’ of envy, slander, arrogance, and senselessness. ²³All these evil things come from within and make a person common.”

²⁴He got up and left that place for the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there, but he could not escape notice. ²⁵Instead, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him and immediately came and fell at his feet. ²⁶Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth. She kept begging him to drive the demon out of her daughter. ²⁷He said to her, “First let the children be fed until they are full. It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the puppies.”

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

²⁹Then he said to her, “Because of this response, go; the demon has left your daughter.” ³⁰When she went home, she found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone.

³¹Then he left the region of Tyre again and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, right into the middle of the Decapolis region. ³²They brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. ³³He took him aside, away from the crowd, privately. He put his fingers into the man’s ears, and after spitting, he touched the man’s tongue. ³⁴Then, looking up to heaven, he sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). ³⁵Immediately his ears were opened, the bond on his tongue was released, and he began to speak clearly.

³⁶Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them, the more widely they proclaimed it. ³⁷People were utterly overwhelmed with amazement, saying, “He has done everything beautifully! He even makes the deaf hear and the speechless speak.”