| Chapter 7 |
1 |
Then the Pharisees, with certain Scribes who had come from Jerusalem, came to Him in a body. |
2 |
They had noticed that some of His disciples were eating their food with `unclean' (that is to say, unwashed) hands. |
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, |
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.) |
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?" |
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 |
But idle is their devotion while they lay down precepts which are mere human rules.' |
8 |
"You neglect God's Commandment: you hold fast to men's traditions." |
9 |
"Praiseworthy indeed!" He added, "to set at nought God's Commandment in order to observe your own traditions! |
10 |
For Moses said, `Honour thy father and thy mother' and again, `He who curses father or mother, let him die the death.' |
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--' |
12 |
And so you no longer allow him to do anything for his father or mother, |
13 |
thus nullifying God's precept by your tradition which you have handed down. And many things of that kind you do." |
14 |
Then Jesus called the people to Him again. "Listen to me, all of you," He said, "and understand. |
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." |
16 |
|
17 |
After He had left the crowd and gone indoors, His disciples began to ask Him about this figure of speech. |
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, |
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. |
20 |
"What comes out of a man," He added, "that it is which makes him unclean. |
21 |
For from within, out of men's hearts, their evil purposes proceed--fornication, theft, murder, adultery, |
22 |
covetousness, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, reviling, pride, reckless folly: |
23 |
all these wicked things come out from within and make a man unclean." |
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. |
25 |
Forthwith a woman whose little daughter was possessed by a foul spirit heard of Him, and came and flung herself at His feet. |
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. |
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." |
28 |
"True, Sir," she replied, "and yet the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps." |
29 |
"For those words of yours, go home," He replied; "the demon has gone out of your daughter." |
30 |
So she went home, and found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. |
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. |
32 |
Here they brought to Him a deaf man that stammered, on whom they begged Him to lay His hands. |
33 |
So Jesus taking him aside, apart from the crowd, put His fingers into his ears, and spat, and moistened his tongue; |
34 |
and looking up to Heaven He sighed, and said to him, "Ephphatha!" (that is, "Open!") |
35 |
And the man's ears were opened, and his tongue became untied, and he began to speak perfectly. |
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. |
37 |
The amazement was extreme. "He succeeds in everything he attempts," they exclaimed; "he even makes deaf men hear and dumb men speak!" |