Knox Bible

1

Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes, who had come from Jerusalem, gathered round him;

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and these found fault, because they saw that some of his disciples sat down to eat with their hands defiled, that is, unwashed.

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For the Pharisees, and indeed all the Jews, holding to the tradition of their ancestors, never eat without washing their hands again and again;

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they will not sit down to meat, coming from the market, without thorough cleansing; and there are many other customs which they hold to by tradition, purifying of cups and pitchers and pans and beds.

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So the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why do thy disciples eat with defiled hands, instead of following the tradition of our ancestors?

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But he answered, You hypocrites, it was a true prophecy Isaias made of you, writing as he did, This people does me honour with its lips, but its heart is far from me;

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their worship of me is vain, for the doctrines they teach are the commandments of men.✻

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You leave God’s commandment on one side, and hold to the tradition of man, the purifying of pitchers and cups, and many other like observances.

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And he told them, You have quite defeated God’s commandment, to establish your own tradition instead.

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Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother, and, He who curses father or mother dies without hope of reprieve.✻

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But you say, Let a man tell his father or his mother, All the money out of which you might get help from me is now Corban (that is, an offering to God),✻

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and then you will not let him do any more for father or mother.

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With this and many like observances, you are making God’s law ineffectual through the tradition you have handed down.

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And he called the multitude to him, and said to them, Listen to me, all of you, and grasp this;

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Nothing that finds its way into a man from outside can make him unclean; what makes a man unclean is what comes out of a man.

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Listen, you that have ears to hear with.

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When he had gone into the house, away from the multitude, his disciples asked him the meaning of the parable.

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And he said to them, Are you still so slow of wit? Do you not observe that all the uncleanness which goes into a man has no means of defiling him,

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because it travels, not into his heart, but into the belly, and so finds its way into the sewer? Thus he declared all meat to be clean,

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and told them that what defiles a man is that which comes out of him.

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For it is from within, from the hearts of men, that their wicked designs come, their sins of adultery, fornication, murder,

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theft, covetousness, malice, deceit, lasciviousness, envy, blasphemy, pride and folly.

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All these evils come from within, and it is these which make a man unclean.

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After this, Jesus left those parts, and withdrew into the neighbourhood of Tyre and Sidon. There he went into a house, and did not wish anyone to know of it; but he could not go unrecognized,

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for a woman came to hear of it, whose daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit, and she came in and fell at his feet.

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This woman was a Gentile, a Syrophenician by race, and she begged him to cast the devil out of her daughter.

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But he said to her, Let the children have their fill first; it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.

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She answered him, Ah, yes, Lord; the dogs eat of the crumbs the children leave, underneath the table.

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And he said to her, In reward for this word of thine, back home with thee; the devil has left thy daughter.

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And when she came back to her house, she found her daughter lying on the bed, and the devil gone.✻

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Then he set out again from the region of Tyre, and came by way of Sidon to the sea of Galilee, right into the region of Decapolis.

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And they brought to him a man who was deaf and dumb, with the prayer that he would lay his hand upon him.

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And he took him aside out of the multitude; he put his fingers into his ears, and spat, and touched his tongue;

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then he looked up to heaven, and sighed; Ephpheta, he said, (that is, Be opened).

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Whereupon his ears were opened, and the bond which tied his tongue was loosed, and he talked plainly.

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And he laid a strict charge on them, not to speak of it to anyone; but the more he charged them, the more widely they published it,

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and were more than ever astonished; He has done well, they said, in all his doings; he has made the deaf hear, and the dumb speak.