²⁰ He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them.

⁶ The tongue also is a fire,^(A) a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body,^(B) sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.^(C)

Submit Yourselves to God

4 What causes fights and quarrels^(A) among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle^(B) within you?

¹⁵ Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”

³⁴ You brood of vipers,^(A) how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks^(B) what the heart is full of. ³⁵ A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. ³⁶ But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. ³⁷ For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”^(C)

Human Plans and God’s Plans

¹⁴ but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own^(A) evil desire and enticed. ¹⁵ Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin;^(B) and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.^(C)

⁶ This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi, yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed^(A) him who had the promises.^(B)