Matthew - Chapter 15

¹ Then Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem came to Jesus and said,

² 'Why do your disciples break away from the tradition of the elders? They eat without washing their hands.'

³ He answered, 'And why do you break away from the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?

⁴ For God said, "Honour your father and your mother" and "Anyone who curses his father or mother will be put to death."

⁵ But you say, "If anyone says to his father or mother: Anything I might have used to help you is dedicated to God,

⁶ he is rid of his duty to father or mother." In this way you have made God's word ineffective by means of your tradition.

⁷ Hypocrites! How rightly Isaiah prophesied about you when he said:

⁸ This people honours me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me.

⁹ Their reverence of me is worthless; the lessons they teach are nothing but human commandments.'

¹⁰ He called the people to him and said, 'Listen, and understand.

¹¹ What goes into the mouth does not make anyone unclean; it is what comes out of the mouth that makes someone unclean.'

¹² Then the disciples came to him and said, 'Do you know that the Pharisees were shocked when they heard what you said?'

¹³ He replied, 'Any plant my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.

¹⁴ Leave them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind; and if one blind person leads another, both will fall into a pit.'

¹⁵ At this, Peter said to him, 'Explain the parable for us.'

¹⁶ Jesus replied, 'Even you -- don't you yet understand?

¹⁷ Can't you see that whatever goes into the mouth passes through the stomach and is discharged into the sewer?

¹⁸ But whatever comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and it is this that makes someone unclean.

¹⁹ For from the heart come evil intentions: murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury, slander.

²⁰ These are the things that make a person unclean. But eating with unwashed hands does not make anyone unclean.'

²¹ Jesus left that place and withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

²² And suddenly out came a Canaanite woman from that district and started shouting, 'Lord, Son of David, take pity on me. My daughter is tormented by a devil.'

²³ But he said not a word in answer to her. And his disciples went and pleaded with him, saying, 'Give her what she wants, because she keeps shouting after us.'

²⁴ He said in reply, 'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.'

²⁵ But the woman had come up and was bowing low before him. 'Lord,' she said, 'help me.'

²⁶ He replied, 'It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to little dogs.'

²⁷ She retorted, 'Ah yes, Lord; but even little dogs eat the scraps that fall from their masters' table.'

²⁸ Then Jesus answered her, 'Woman, you have great faith. Let your desire be granted.' And from that moment her daughter was well again.

²⁹ Jesus went on from there and reached the shores of the Lake of Galilee, and he went up onto the mountain. He took his seat,

³⁰ and large crowds came to him bringing the lame, the crippled, the blind, the dumb and many others; these they put down at his feet, and he cured them.

³¹ The crowds were astonished to see the dumb speaking, the cripples whole again, the lame walking and the blind with their sight, and they praised the God of Israel.

³² But Jesus called his disciples to him and said, 'I feel sorry for all these people; they have been with me for three days now and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them off hungry, or they might collapse on the way.'

³³ The disciples said to him, 'Where in a deserted place could we get sufficient bread for such a large crowd to have enough to eat?'

³⁴ Jesus said to them, 'How many loaves have you?' They said, 'Seven, and a few small fish.'

³⁵ Then he instructed the crowd to sit down on the ground,

³⁶ and he took the seven loaves and the fish, and after giving thanks he broke them and began handing them to the disciples, who gave them to the crowds.

³⁷ They all ate as much as they wanted, and they collected what was left of the scraps, seven baskets full.

³⁸ Now four thousand men had eaten, to say nothing of women and children.

³⁹ And when he had sent the crowds away he got into the boat and went to the territory of Magadan.

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