1 The Pharisees and some of the scribes came from Jerusalem to gather around Jesus.

2 They saw that some of his disciples ate their bread with unwashed defiled hands.

3 For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat until they wash their hands. They practice the tradition of the elders.

4 When they come from the marketplace they wash themselves before they eat. They follow many other rules. They wash their cups, and brass pots, and other vessels.

5 The Pharisees and the scribes asked: »Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders. Instead they eat their bread with defiled hands?«

6 He told them: »Isaiah prophesied about you hypocrites. It is written: ‘This people honor me with their lips but their heart is far from me.

7 ‘They worship me in vain teaching as doctrines the commands of men.’«

8 Speaking to the Pharisees and scribes He said: »You abandon the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men.

9 »You totally reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition.

10 »Moses said: ‘Honor your father and your mother. He also said: ‘He that speaks evil of father or mother must die.’

11 »But you say: ‘If a man says to his father or his mother that which would benefit you is a gift to God,

12 he no longer has to do anything for his father or mother.’

13 »You make the word of God invalid by your tradition.«

14 He called the crowd again and said: »Listen and understand!

15 »Nothing that goes into a person from the outside can make him unclean. That which comes from inside of a man can make him unclean.

16 »If any man has ears to hear, let him hear.«

17 When he entered the house away from the crowd his disciples asked him to explain.

18 He replied: »Do you not understand? Do you not know that which goes into the man from the outside cannot defile him?

19 »It is because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach and is eliminated? All foods are clean.

20 »That which comes out of the man defiles the man.

21 »It is from the heart that evil thoughts come such as: fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,

22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, loose conduct, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

23 »All these evil things come from within and defile the man.«

24 Jesus went to the territory of Tyre and Sidon. He did not want anyone to know that he was staying in a house there. However it could not be kept a secret.

25 A woman whose little daughter had an evil spirit heard about Jesus. She went to him and bowed down.

26 The woman was a Greek Syrophoenician by race. She wanted him to drive out the demon out of her daughter.

27 He said to her: »Let the children be fed first. It is not proper to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.«

28 She answered: »Yes Lord, even the dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.«

29 Then he replied: »Thanks to your answer you may leave for the demon has gone out of your daughter.«

30 She went to her house and found the child on the bed with the demon gone.

31 He left the borders of Tyre through Sidon, through the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee.

32 They brought a deaf man with an impediment in his speech to him and asked him to lay his hands on him.

33 Jesus took him aside from the crowd privately, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat, and touched his tongue.

34 Looking up to heaven he sighed and said to him: »Ephphatha, that is, be opened.«

35 His ears were opened. His tongue was freed and he spoke plainly.

36 Jesus told them not to tell anyone. The more he told them not to talk the more they talked.

37 They were beside themselves with amazement saying: He makes even the deaf hear and the dumb speak.