Gospel according to Mark 7

¹ The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered round him,

² and they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with unclean hands, that is, without washing them.

³ For the Pharisees, and the Jews in general, follow the tradition of the elders and never eat without washing their arms as far as the elbow;

⁴ and on returning from the market place they never eat without first sprinkling themselves. There are also many other observances which have been handed down to them concerning the washing of cups and pots and bronze dishes.

⁵ So these Pharisees and scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not respect the tradition of the elders but eat their food with unclean hands?’

⁶ He answered, ‘It was of you hypocrites that Isaiah so rightly prophesied in this passage of scripture: This people honours me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me.

⁷ The worship they offer me is worthless, the doctrines they teach are only human regulations.[*a]

⁸ You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.’

⁹ And he said to them, ‘How ingeniously you get round the commandment of God in order to preserve your own tradition!

¹⁰ For Moses said: Do your duty to your father and your mother, and, Anyone who curses father or mother must be put to death.

¹¹ But you say, “If a man says to his father or mother: Anything I have that I might have used to help you is Corban[*b] (that is, dedicated to God),

¹² then he is forbidden from that moment to do anything for his father or mother”.

¹³ In this way you make God’s word null and void for the sake of your tradition which you have handed down. And you do many other things like this.’

¹⁴ He called the people to him again and said, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand.

¹⁵ Nothing that goes into a man from outside can make him unclean; it is the things that come out of a man that make him unclean.

¹⁶ If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen to this.’

¹⁷ When he had gone back into the house, away from the crowd, his disciples questioned him about the parable.

¹⁸ He said to them, ‘Do you not understand either? Can you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot make him unclean,

¹⁹ because it does not go into his heart but through his stomach and passes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he pronounced all foods clean.)

²⁰ And he went on, ‘It is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean.

²¹ For it is from within, from men’s hearts, that evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft, murder, adultery,

²² avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly.

²³ All these evil things come from within and make a man unclean.’

²⁴ He left that place and set out for the territory of Tyre. There he went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there, but he could not pass unrecognised.

²⁵ A woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him straightaway and came and fell at his feet.

²⁶ Now the woman was a pagan, by birth a Syrophoenician, and she begged him to cast the devil out of her daughter.

²⁷ And he said to her, ‘The children should be fed first, because it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs’.

²⁸ But she spoke up: ‘Ah yes, sir,’ she replied ‘but the house-dogs under the table can eat the children’s scraps’.

²⁹ And he said to her, ‘For saying this, you may go home happy: the devil has gone out of your daughter’.

³⁰ So she went off to her home and found the child lying on the bed and the devil gone.

³¹ Returning from the district of Tyre, he went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, right through the Decapolis region.

³² And they brought him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they asked him to lay his hand on him.

³³ He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, put his fingers into the man’s ears and touched his tongue with spittle.

³⁴ Then looking up to heaven he sighed; and he said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened’.

³⁵ And his ears were opened, and the ligament of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly.

³⁶ And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they published it.

³⁷ Their admiration was unbounded. ‘He has done all things well,’ they said ‘he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.’