Part 10

006:056 And enter wherever He might--village or town or hamlet-- they laid their sick in the open places, and entreated Him to let them touch were it but the tassel of His robe; and all, whoever touched Him, were restored to health.

007:001 Then the Pharisees, with certain Scribes who had come from Jerusalem, came to Him in a body.

007:002 They had noticed that some of His disciples were eating their food with 'unclean' (that is to say, unwashed) hands.

007:003 (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,

007:004 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.)

007:005 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?"

007:006 "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:

007:007 But idle is their devotion while they lay down precepts which are mere human rules.'

007:008 "You neglect God's Commandment: you hold fast to men's traditions."

007:009 "Praiseworthy indeed!" He added, "to set at nought God's Commandment in order to observe your own traditions!

007:010 For Moses said, 'Honour thy father and thy mother' and again, 'He who curses father or mother, let him die the death.'

007:011 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--'

007:012 And so you no longer allow him to do anything for his father or mother,

007:013 thus nullifying God's precept by your tradition which you have handed down. And many things of that kind you do."

007:014 Then Jesus called the people to Him again. "Listen to me, all of you," He said, "and understand.

007:015 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."

007:016 []

007:017 After He had left the crowd and gone indoors, His disciples began to ask Him about this figure of speech.

007:018 "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,

007:019 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.

007:020 "What comes out of a man," He added, "that it is which makes him unclean.

007:021 For from within, out of men's hearts, their evil purposes proceed-- fornication, theft, murder, adultery,

007:022 covetousness, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, reviling, pride, reckless folly:

007:023 all these wicked things come out from within and make a man unclean."

007:024 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.

007:025 Forthwith a woman whose little daughter was possessed by a foul spirit heard of Him, and came and flung herself at His feet.

007:026 She was a Gentile woman, a Syro-phoenician by nation: and again and again she begged Him to expel the demon from her daughter.

007:027 "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."