Gospel according to Matthew 15

¹ Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem then came to Jesus and said,

² ‘Why do your disciples break away from the tradition of the elders?[*a] They do not wash their hands when they eat food.’

³ ‘And why do you’ he answered ‘break away from the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?

⁴ For God said: Do your duty to[*b] your father and mother and: Anyone who curses father or mother must be put to death.[*c]

⁵ But you say, “If anyone says to his father or mother: Anything I have that I might have used to help you is dedicated to God”,

⁶ he is rid of his duty to father or mother.[*d] In this way you have made God’s word null and void by means of your tradition.

⁷ Hypocrites! It was you Isaiah meant when he so rightly prophesied:

⁸ This people honours me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me.

⁹ The worship they offer me is worthless; the doctrines they teach are only human regulations.'[*e]

¹⁰ He called the people to him and said, ‘Listen, and understand.

¹¹ What goes into the mouth does not make a man unclean; it is what comes out of the mouth that makes him unclean.’

¹² Then the disciples came to him and said, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees were shocked when they heard what you said?’

¹³ He replied, ‘Any plant my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.

¹⁴ Leave them alone. They are blind men leading blind men; and if one blind man leads another, both will fall into a pit.’

¹⁵ At this, Peter said to him, ‘Explain the parable for us’.

¹⁶ Jesus replied, ‘Do even you not yet understand?

¹⁷ Can you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes through the stomach and is discharged into the sewer?

¹⁸ But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and it is these that make a man unclean.

¹⁹ For from the heart come evil intentions: murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury, slander.

²⁰ These are the things that make a man unclean. But to eat with unwashed hands does not make a man unclean.’

²¹ Jesus left that place and withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

²² Then out came a Canaanite woman from that district and started shouting, ‘Sir, Son of David, take pity on me. My daughter is tormented by a devil.’

²³ But he answered her not a word. And his disciples went and pleaded with him. ‘Give her what she wants,’ they said ‘because she is shouting after us.’

²⁴ He said in reply, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel’.

²⁵ But the woman had come up and was kneeling at his feet. ‘Lord,’ she said ‘help me.’

²⁶ He replied, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs’.

²⁷ She retorted, ‘Ah yes, sir; but even house-dogs can eat the scraps that fall from their master’s table’.

²⁸ Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, you have great faith. Let your wish be granted.’ And from that moment her daughter was well again.

²⁹ Jesus went on from there and reached the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and he went up into the hills. He sat there,

³⁰ and large crowds came to him bringing the lame, the crippled, the blind, the dumb and many others; these they put down at his feet, and he cured them.

³¹ The crowds were astonished to see the dumb speaking, the cripples whole again, the lame walking and the blind with their sight, and they praised the God of Israel.

³² But Jesus called his disciples to him and said, ‘I feel sorry for all these people; they have been with me for three days now and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them off hungry, they might collapse on the way.’

³³ The disciples said to him, ‘Where could we get enough bread in this deserted place to feed such a crowd?’

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

³⁵ Then he instructed the crowd to sit down on the ground,

³⁶ and he took the seven loaves and the fish, and he gave thanks and broke them and handed them to the disciples who gave them to the crowds.

³⁷ They all ate as much as they wanted, and they collected what was left of the scraps, seven baskets full.

³⁸ Now four thousand men had eaten, to say nothing of women and children.

³⁹ And when he had sent the crowds away he got into the boat and went to the district of Magadan.