7:1 Then the Pharisees, with certain Scribes who had come from Jerusalem, came to Him in a body.

7:2 They had noticed that some of His disciples were eating their food with `unclean' (that is to say, unwashed) hands.

7:3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews--being, as they are, zealous for the traditions of the Elders--never eat without first carefully washing their hands,

7:4 and when they come from market they will not eat without bathing first; and they have a good many other customs which they have received traditionally and cling to, such as the rinsing of cups and pots and of bronze utensils, and the washing of beds.)

7:5 So the Pharisees and Scribes put the question to Him: "Why do your disciples transgress the traditions of the Elders, and eat their food with unclean hands?"

7:6 "Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites," He replied; "as it is written, <"`This People honour Me with their lips, while their hearts are far away from Me:

7:7 But idle is their devotion while they lay down precepts which are mere human rules.'>

7:8 "You neglect God's Commandment: you hold fast to men's traditions."

7:9 "Praiseworthy indeed!" He added, "to set at nought God's Commandment in order to observe your own traditions!

7:10 For Moses said, <`Honour thy father and thy mother'> and again, <`He who curses father or mother, let him die the death.'>

7:11 But *you* say, `If a man says to his father or mother, It is a Korban (that is, a thing devoted to God), whatever it is, which otherwise you would have received from me--'

7:12 And so you no longer allow him to do anything for his father or mother,

7:13 thus nullifying God's precept by your tradition which you have handed down. And many things of that kind you do."

7:14 Then Jesus called the people to Him again. "Listen to me, all of you," He said, "and understand.

7:15 There is nothing outside a man which entering him can make him unclean; but it is the things which come out of a man that make him unclean."

7:16 []

7:17 After He had left the crowd and gone indoors, His disciples began to ask Him about this figure of speech.

7:18 "Have *you* also so little understanding?" He replied; "do you not understand that anything whatever that enters a man from outside cannot make him unclean,

7:19 because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and passes away ejected from him?" By these words Jesus pronounced all kinds of food clean.

7:20 "What comes out of a man," He added, "that it is which makes him unclean.

7:21 For from within, out of men's hearts, their evil purposes proceed--fornication, theft, murder, adultery,

7:22 covetousness, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, reviling, pride, reckless folly:

7:23 all these wicked things come out from within and make a man unclean."

7:24 Then He rose and left that place and went into the neighbourhood of Tyre and Sidon. Here He entered a house and wished no one to know it, but He could not escape observation.

7:25 Forthwith a woman whose little daughter was possessed by a foul spirit heard of Him, and came and flung herself at His feet.

7:26 She was a Gentile woman, a Syro-phoenician by nation: and again and again she begged Him to expel the demon from her daughter.

7:27 "Let the children first eat all they want," He said; "it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."

7:28 "True, Sir," she replied, "and yet the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps."

7:29 "For those words of yours, go home," He replied; "the demon has gone out of your daughter."

7:30 So she went home, and found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

7:31 Returning from the neighbourhood of Tyre, He came by way of Sidon to the Lake of Galilee, passing through the district of the Ten Towns.

7:32 Here they brought to Him a deaf man that stammered, on whom they begged Him to lay His hands.

7:33 So Jesus taking him aside, apart from the crowd, put His fingers into his ears, and spat, and moistened his tongue;

7:34 and looking up to Heaven He sighed, and said to him, "Ephphatha!" (that is, "Open!")

7:35 And the man's ears were opened, and his tongue became untied, and he began to speak perfectly.

7:36 Then Jesus charged them to tell no one; but the more He charged them, all the more did they spread the news far and wide.