M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

7 Then some Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem came to Jesus.

² They saw some of the disciples eating food. They had not washed their hands before they ate. The Pharisees said that was wrong.

³ They and all the Jews keep the laws made by men. God did not give them those laws. They do not eat until they wash their hands very well.

⁴ When they come from the market, they do not eat until they have washed themselves. They also keep many other laws such as washing cups, pots, brass pans, and beds.

⁵ The Pharisees and the scribes asked Jesus, `Why do your disciples not keep the law our fathers made? Why do they eat with hands that are not clean?'

^6-7 esus said to them, `Isaiah spoke the truth about you people! You are not true to yourselves! He wrote about you this way: "These people respect me with their mouths. But their hearts are far from me. They do not mean it in their hearts when they worship me. Their teachings are only words of men."

⁸ `You do not keep the law of God, but you keep the laws made by people. Those laws are about washing pots and cups. You do many other things like that also.

⁹ `You break God's law so that you can keep your own law.

¹⁰ Moses said, "Respect your father and your mother. Anyone who says wrong things to his father or his mother will die."

¹¹ You say, "Tell your father or your mother that what you were going to give to them is Corban." (That means a gift to God.)

¹² So you stop him from doing anything for his father and mother.

¹³ You make God's law to mean nothing so that you can keep your own laws. You do many other things like that also.'

¹⁴ Then Jesus called the people to him again. He said, `Listen to me, all of you, and understand what I say.

¹⁵ What goes into a person's mouth does not make him dirty. But what comes out of a person's mouth makes him dirty.

¹⁶ Everyone who has ears to hear, listen!'

¹⁷ Jesus left the people and went into a house. His disciples asked him the meaning of the story.

¹⁸ He said, `Do you still not understand? Do you not know this? What goes into a person from the outside cannot make a person dirty.

¹⁹ It does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and then it goes out of the body.' By saying this, Jesus meant that food does not make a person dirty.

²⁰ But he said, `What comes out of a person makes him dirty. 21,

²¹ Here is what comes from the heart: wrong thoughts, all kinds of adultery, stealing, killing, wanting things that other people have, doing very wrong things, fooling people, breaking the law, jealousy, saying wrong things about people, being proud, being foolish.

²² All these wrong things come from a person's heart and make him dirty.'

²³ Then Jesus went away to the country of Tyre and Sidon. He went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. But he could not hide from the people.

²⁴ Right away a woman heard of him. She came and kneeled down before him. Her daughter had a bad spirit in her.

²⁵ The woman was not a Jew and had been born in the country of Phoenicia in Syria. She begged Jesus to drive the bad spirit out of her daughter.

²⁶ But Jesus said to her, `We will give the children all they want to eat first. It is not right to take the children's food and give it to the little dogs.'

²⁷ She answered, `Yes, Sir. But even the little dogs under the table eat food that falls from the children's table.'

²⁸ Jesus said to her, `Because you have said this, you may go home. The bad spirit has gone out of your daughter.'

²⁹ When she came to her house, she found that the bad spirit had left. Her daughter was lying on the bed.

³⁰ Jesus went away from Tyre and Sidon and came to the sea of Galilee. He passed through the country of the Ten Towns.

³¹ The people brought a man to Jesus who could not hear and could not talk well. They begged Jesus to put his hand on him.

³² So Jesus took him away alone. He put his fingers in the man's ears. Then he spat and touched the man's tongue.

³³ He looked up to heaven and sighed. He said, `Ephphatha!' That means, `Be opened!'

³⁴ Right away the man's ears were opened and his tongue was made free. He could talk well.

³⁵ Jesus said, `Do not tell anyone.' But the more he told them not to tell, the more they told it everywhere.

³⁶ The people were very much surprised. They said, `He has done everything well. The people who could not hear can hear. The people who could not talk can talk.'

7 My brothers, I am saying this to you people who know the law. Do you not know that the law is master over a person only while he lives?

² A married woman belongs to her husband by law as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law that made her belong to her husband.

³ So if she belongs to another man while her husband is living, she commits adultery. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. Then if she belongs to another man, she does not commit adultery.

⁴ In the same way my brothers, you died when Christ died. And you are free from the law. Now you belong to another person. You belong to the one who has been raised from death. Because of that, we are able to do what God wants us to do.

⁵ One time we lived in the way our bodies wanted to live. The law made us think about doing wrong things. And we did things that made us die.

⁶ But now we have been made free from the law. We died, and so we are no longer slaves to the one who was our master. Now we are slaves to God in our new life. This new life is ruled by the Spirit. We do not work for the old written law.

⁷ So what shall we say? Shall we say that the law is bad? No! I would not have known what is wrong if there had been no law. The law says, `Do not want to take other people's things.' That is how I know it is wrong to want another person's things.

⁸ My wrong ways used the law to make me want all kinds of things. When there is no law, the thing within me that wants to do wrong is dead.

⁹ Once I had no law, and I lived. But when the law came, that which wanted to do wrong things came to life, and I died.

¹⁰ The same law which was meant to make a person live, made me die.

¹¹ My wrong ways used the law to fool me and kill me.

¹² So the law is holy. And what the law says is holy and right and good.

¹³ So did that good thing make me die? No. The wrong things I did made me die, because that good thing showed they were wrong. And the law shows that the wrong things are very, very bad.

¹⁴ We know that the law came from the Holy Spirit. But I am a weak man. I have been sold like a slave to do wrong things.

¹⁵ I do not know why I do the things I do. I do not do what I want to do. But I do the things I hate.

¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.

¹⁷ So now it is no longer I who do it, but my wrong ways in me.

¹⁸ I know that no good thing lives in me. I mean, no good thing lives in my body. I want to do what is good, but I cannot do it.

¹⁹ I do not do the good thing I want to do, but I do the wrong thing that I do not want to do.

²⁰ If I do the thing I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but the wrong thing in me that does it.

²¹ So there is a law I find that it is at work in me. When I want to do what is right, I can only do what is wrong.

²² In my own mind I am glad to obey the law of God.

²³ But I see that in my body there is another law fighting against the law in my mind. And that makes me like a prisoner to the law of wrong things in my body.

²⁴ I am a very sad man. Who will save me from this body that will make me die?

²⁵ Thank God for Jesus Christ our Lord who will do it! So this is the way it is. In my mind I am a slave to do the law of God, but in my body I am a slave to do the law of wrong things.