What Makes People “Unclean”?

15 Some Pharisees and some teachers of the law came from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They asked, ² “Why don’t your disciples obey what the elders teach? Your disciples don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

³ Jesus replied, “And why don’t you obey God’s command? You would rather follow your own teachings! ⁴ God said, ‘Honor your father and mother.’ (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16) He also said, ‘Anyone who asks for bad things to happen to their father or mother must be put to death.’ (Exodus 21:17; Leviticus 20:9) ⁵ But suppose people have something that might be used to help their parents. You allow them to say it is instead ‘a gift set apart for God.’ ⁶ So they do not need to honor their father or mother with their gift. You make the word of God useless in order to follow your own teachings. ⁷ You pretenders! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you. He said,

¹⁰ Jesus called the crowd to him. He said, “Listen and understand. ¹¹ What goes into someone’s mouth does not make them ‘unclean.’ It’s what comes out of their mouth that makes them ‘unclean.’ ”

¹² Then the disciples came to him. They asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were angry when they heard this?”

¹³ Jesus replied, “They are plants that my Father in heaven has not planted. They will be pulled up by the roots. ¹⁴ Leave the Pharisees. They are blind guides. If one blind person leads another blind person, both of them will fall into a pit.”

¹⁵ Peter said, “Explain this to us.”

¹⁶ “Don’t you understand yet?” Jesus asked them. ¹⁷ “Don’t you see? Everything that enters the mouth goes into the stomach. Then it goes out of the body. ¹⁸ But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart. Those are the things that make someone ‘unclean.’