Matthew 15

¹Then Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem come to Jesus, saying, ²"Why do your disciples violate the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread."

³But answering he said to them, "Why do you also violate the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? ⁴For God said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'The one who speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.' ⁵But you say, 'Whoever says to father or mother, "Whatever you might have benefited from me is a gift to God"— ⁶he certainly will not honor his father.' And so you have nullified the word of God for the sake of your tradition. ⁷Performers! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:

⁸'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart holds far from me. ⁹In vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of human beings.'"

¹⁰And calling the crowd to him, he said to them, "Listen and understand: ¹¹It is not what enters the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth—this is what defiles a person."

¹²Then the disciples came and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees were scandalized when they heard this saying?"

¹³But answering he said, "Every plant that my heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted. ¹⁴Leave them alone. They are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind person guides a blind person, both will fall into a pit."

¹⁵Then Peter answered and said to him, "Explain this parable to us."

¹⁶And he said, "Are you also still without understanding? ¹⁷Do you not grasp that everything entering the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled into the latrine? ¹⁸But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these defile the person. ¹⁹For out of the heart come evil intentions, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, slanders. ²⁰These are what defile a person, but eating with unwashed hands does not defile a person."

²¹And leaving from there, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. ²²And look—a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying out, saying, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely tormented by a demon."

²³But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and kept urging him, saying, "Send her away, because she keeps crying out behind us."

²⁴But answering he said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

²⁵But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me!"

²⁶But answering he said, "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs."

²⁷But she said, "Yes, Lord—yet even the little dogs eat from the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

²⁸Then Jesus answered and said to her, "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed from that hour.

²⁹And moving on from there, Jesus came alongside the Sea of Galilee, and going up on the mountain, he sat down there. ³⁰And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the mute, blind, lame, maimed, and many others, and they laid them at his feet, and he healed them— ³¹so that the crowd was amazed as they saw the mute speaking, the maimed restored, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel.

³²Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion on the crowd, because they have already remained with me three days and have nothing to eat. I am not willing to send them away hungry, lest they collapse on the way."

³³And the disciples said to him, "Where in this desolate place could we get enough loaves to satisfy such a large crowd?"

³⁴And Jesus said to them, "How many loaves do you have?" And they said, "Seven, and a few small fish."

³⁵And commanding the crowd to recline on the ground, ³⁶he took the seven loaves and the fish, and after giving thanks he broke them and kept giving them to the disciples, and the disciples to the crowds. ³⁷And they all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the leftover fragments—seven large baskets full. ³⁸Now those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children. ³⁹And after dismissing the crowds, he got into the boat and came to the region of Magadan.