Chronological Plan

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

²“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.”

³He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?

⁴For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’

⁵But you say that whoever tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,’ then that person need not honor the father.

⁶So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God.

⁷You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:

⁸‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;

⁹in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”

¹⁰Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand:

¹¹it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”

¹²Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?”

¹³He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.

¹⁴Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”

¹⁵But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.”

¹⁶Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding?

¹⁷Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?

¹⁸But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.

¹⁹For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.

²⁰These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

²¹Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon.

²²Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”

²³But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.”

²⁴He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

²⁵But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”

²⁶He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

²⁷She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

²⁸Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

²⁹After Jesus had left that place, he passed along the Sea of Galilee, and he went up the mountain, where he sat down.

³⁰Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them,

³¹so that the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

³²Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.”

³³The disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?”

³⁴Jesus asked them, “How many loaves have you?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.”

³⁵Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground,

³⁶he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.

³⁷And all of them ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.

³⁸Those who had eaten were four thousand men, besides women and children.

³⁹After sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan.

¹Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him,

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

³(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders;

⁴and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.)

⁵So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”

⁶He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;

⁷in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

⁸You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

⁹Then he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!

¹⁰For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’

¹¹But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban’ (that is, an offering to God) —

¹²then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother,

¹³thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.”

¹⁴Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand:

¹⁵there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

¹⁶

¹⁷When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable.

¹⁸He said to them, “Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile,

¹⁹since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)

²⁰And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles.

²¹For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder,

²²adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.

²³All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

²⁴From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice,

²⁵but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.

²⁶Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

²⁷He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

²⁸But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

²⁹Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go — the demon has left your daughter.”

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

³¹Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.

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

³³He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue.

³⁴Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”

³⁵And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

³⁶Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.

³⁷They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”