The Teaching of the Ancestors^(A)

7 Some Pharisees and teachers of the Law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus. ² They noticed that some of his disciples were eating their food with hands that were ritually unclean—that is, they had not washed them in the way the Pharisees said people should.

(³ For the Pharisees, as well as the rest of the Jews, follow the teaching they received from their ancestors: they do not eat unless they wash their hands in the proper way; ⁴ nor do they eat anything that comes from the market unless they wash it first.^[a] And they follow many other rules which they have received, such as the proper way to wash cups, pots, copper bowls, and beds.^[b])

⁵ So the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law asked Jesus, “Why is it that your disciples do not follow the teaching handed down by our ancestors, but instead eat with ritually unclean hands?”

^6 (B)Jesus answered them, “How right Isaiah was when he prophesied about you! You are hypocrites, just as he wrote:

⁸ “You put aside God's command and obey human teachings.”

The Things That Make a Person Unclean^(A)

¹⁴ Then Jesus called the crowd to him once more and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand. ¹⁵ There is nothing that goes into you from the outside which can make you ritually unclean. Rather, it is what comes out of you that makes you unclean.”

²¹ For from the inside, from your heart, come the evil ideas which lead you to do immoral things, to rob, kill, ²² commit adultery, be greedy, and do all sorts of evil things; deceit, indecency, jealousy, slander, pride, and folly— ²³ all these evil things come from inside you and make you unclean.”