Defiled on the Inside or Outside
Mark 7Then Pharisees and some of the scribes who came from Jerusalem gathered around him him. And they saw some of his disciples eating bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews don’t eat unless they wash their hands and forearms, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace, they don’t eat unless they bathe, and there are many other things which they have received and hold to: washings of cups, pitchers, and bronze pots.) The Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why don’t your disciples walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?”
He answered them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy about y’all hypocrites. As it is written,
‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the human commandments.’+Isa 29:13“Having neglected the commandment of God, y’all are holding tightly to human tradition.” He also said to them, “Y’all have an excellent way of rejecting the commandment of God so that y’all can keep y’all’s tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother;’+Exo 20:16 and, ‘Anyone who speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death.’+Exo 21:9 But y’all say, if a human tells their father or his mother, ‘Whatever assistance you might have received from me is Corban,’” (that is, given to God), “then y’all no longer allow them to do anything for their father or mother. This invalidates the word of God by y’all’s tradition which y’all have handed down. And y’all do many things like this.”
Again he called the crowd and said to them, “All y’all listen to me and understand. Nothing outside a human can defile them by going inside them. Instead, it is the things that proceed out of a human that defile a human.+7:15 Some manuscripts include verse 16 “If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear!”
When he had entered the house away from the crowd, his disciples asked him about the parable. He said to them, “Are y’all also foolish? Don’t y’all understand that whatever goes into a human from outside can’t defile them, because it doesn’t go into their heart, but into their stomach, then out of the body?” (Thus, all foods are clean.) He said, “What proceeds out of a human, that defiles the human. For it is from within, out of the human heart, that evil thoughts proceed—sexual sins, murders, thefts, adultery, greed, evil, deceit, sensuality, envious eyes, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evils come from within and defile a human.”
The Syrophoenician Woman’s Faith and Courage
Jesus arose and went away into the region of Tyre. He entered a house and didn’t want anyone to know it, but he couldn’t escape notice. But immediately, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him, and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Greek, of Syrophoenician background. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. But Jesus said to her, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not appropriate to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
But she answered him, “Yes, Lord. Yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
He said to her, “Because of this answer, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.”
She went away to her house, and found the child lying on the bed, with the demon having gone out.
Healing a Deaf and Mute Man
Again he departed from the borders of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of Decapolis. They brought to him a man who was deaf and spoke with difficulty, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. Jesus took him aside from the crowd privately and put his fingers into his ears. Then he spat and touched the man’s tongue. Looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, he said to him, “Ephphatha!” that is, “Be opened!” Then his ears were opened, and the his tongue was loosened, and he spoke clearly. Jesus commanded them that they should tell no one, but the more he commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it. They were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak!”