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The Tradition of the Elders

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands,[a] thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it;[b] and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.[c]) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live[d] according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

“This people honours me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
    teaching human precepts as doctrines.”

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

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Footnotes

  1. Mark 7:3 Meaning of Gk uncertain
  2. Mark 7:4 Other ancient authorities read and when they come from the market-place, they do not eat unless they purify themselves
  3. Mark 7:4 Other ancient authorities add and beds
  4. Mark 7:5 Gk walk

14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’[a]

17 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19 since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

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Footnotes

  1. Mark 7:15 Other ancient authorities add verse 16, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen’

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