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

Warning against Idleness

⁶ Now we command you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from every brother or sister living irresponsibly and not according to the tradition that they^[a] received from us.^(A)

²¹ They have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the gentiles to forsake Moses and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs.

¹⁴ I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.^(A)

²⁴ Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you but that you yourself observe and guard the law.^(A)

¹⁶ When the scribes of^[a] the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat^[b] with tax collectors and sinners?”^{(A) 17} When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”^(B)

The Question about Fasting

¹⁸ Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and people^[c] came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”

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

¹² and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised.

¹¹ For we hear that some of you are living irresponsibly, mere busybodies, not doing any work.^(A)

² they 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 wash their hands,^[a] thus observing the tradition of the elders,^(A)