Matthew 15

Williams^{(i) 1} Then some Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem came to Jesus, and asked Him, ² "Why do your disciples break the rules handed down by our forefathers? For they do not practice washing their hands when they take their meals." ³ But He answered, "Why do you too break God's command for the sake of the rules that have been handed down to you? ⁴ For God said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and 'Whoever curses his father or mother must certainly be put to death.' ⁵ But you say, 'Whoever tells his father or mother, "Everything I have that might be used for helping you, is devoted to God," ⁶ is under no obligation at all to help his parent.' So you have set aside what God has said for the sake of what has been handed down to you. ⁷ You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied beautifully about you, when he said: ⁸ "'This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far, far away from me; ⁹ Their worship of me is an empty show; the things they teach are only men's precepts.'" ¹⁰ And He called the people to Him and said, "Listen to this and learn it! ¹¹ It is not what goes into a man's mouth that makes him foul; no, it is what comes out of a man's mouth that makes him foul." ¹² Then His disciples came up to Him and asked, "Do you know that the Pharisees were knocked breathless to hear what you have just said?" ¹³ He answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father did not plant must be rooted up. ¹⁴ Let them alone. They are blind teachers! And if one blind man guides another, they will both fall into the ditch." ¹⁵ Then Peter said to Him, "Explain the maxim for us." ¹⁶ And He said, "Are you too, even yet, without understanding? ¹⁷ Do you not understand that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and afterwards into the waste? ¹⁸ But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and they make the man foul. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, immorality, stealing, false witnessing, irreverent speech. ²⁰ These are the things that make a man foul, but eating with unwashed hands does not make a man foul." ²¹ Then Jesus left there and slipped away to the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon. ²² And a Canaanite woman of that district came out and pleaded, saying, "Do pity me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is suffering horrors from a demon." ²³ But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came up and kept begging Him, "Send her away, for she keeps on screaming after us." ²⁴ But He answered, "I have been sent only to the lost sheep of Israel's house." ²⁵ But she came and bowed to Him, and kept praying, "Lord, help me!" ²⁶ He answered, "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the house dogs." ²⁷ She said, "Yes, Lord, and yet the house dogs usually eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." ²⁸ Then Jesus answered her, "O woman, wonderful is your faith! You must have what you want." And her daughter was cured at that very moment. ²⁹ Then Jesus left there and went to the shore of the sea of Galilee. Then He went up the hill and kept sitting there, ³⁰ and great crowds came up to Him bringing with them the lame, the crippled, the blind, the deaf, and many others. They laid them at His feet, and He cured them, ³¹ so that the crowd was astonished to see the dumb talking, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. So they praised the God of Israel. ³² Then Jesus called His disciples to Him, and said, "My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, for it is now three days they have been staying with me, and they have nothing at all left to eat, and I fear they might give out on the way home." ³³ The disciples said to Him, "Where in this destitute place can we get bread enough to satisfy such a crowd?" ³⁴ Then Jesus asked them, "How many loaves have you on hand?" They answered, "Seven and a few small fish." ³⁵ Then He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground, ³⁶ and He took the seven loaves and the fish and gave thanks; then He broke them in pieces, and kept giving the pieces to the disciples, and they to the crowds. ³⁷ And they all ate and had aplenty, and they took up the pieces left over, which made seven hamper-basketfuls. ³⁸ Those fed numbered four thousand men, besides women and children. ³⁹ Then He sent the crowds away, got into the boat, and went to the district of Magadan.