Chapter 7

   Then the Pharisees, with certain Scribes who had come from Jerusalem, came to Him in a body.  

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   They had noticed that some of His disciples were eating their food with 'unclean' (that is to say, unwashed) hands.  

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   (For the Pharisees and all the Jews--being, as they are, zealous for the traditions of the Elders--never eat without first carefully washing their hands,  

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   and when they come from market they will not eat without bathing first; and they have a good many other customs which they have received traditionally and cling to, such as the rinsing of cups and pots and of bronze utensils, and the washing of beds.)  

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   So the Pharisees and Scribes put the question to Him: 'Why do your disciples transgress the traditions of the Elders, and eat their food with unclean hands?'  

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   'Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites,' He replied; 'as it is written, ''This People honour Me with their lips, while their hearts are far away from Me:  

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   But idle is their devotion while they lay down precepts which are mere human rules.'  

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   'You neglect God's Commandment: you hold fast to men's traditions.'  

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   'Praiseworthy indeed!' He added, 'to set at nought God's Commandment in order to observe your own traditions!  

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   For Moses said, 'Honour thy father and thy mother' and again, 'He who curses father or mother, let him die the death.'  

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   But *you* say, 'If a man says to his father or mother, It is a Korban (that is, a thing devoted to God), whatever it is, which otherwise you would have received from me--'  

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   And so you no longer allow him to do anything for his father or mother,  

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   thus nullifying God's precept by your tradition which you have handed down. And many things of that kind you do.'  

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   Then Jesus called the people to Him again. 'Listen to me, all of you,' He said, 'and understand.  

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   There is nothing outside a man which entering him can make him unclean; but it is the things which come out of a man that make him unclean.'  

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   After He had left the crowd and gone indoors, His disciples began to ask Him about this figure of speech.  

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   'Have *you* also so little understanding?' He replied; 'do you not understand that anything whatever that enters a man from outside cannot make him unclean,  

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   because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and passes away ejected from him?' By these words Jesus pronounced all kinds of food clean.  

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   'What comes out of a man,' He added, 'that it is which makes him unclean.  

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   For from within, out of men's hearts, their evil purposes proceed--fornication, theft, murder, adultery,  

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   covetousness, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, reviling, pride, reckless folly:  

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   all these wicked things come out from within and make a man unclean.'  

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   Then He rose and left that place and went into the neighbourhood of Tyre and Sidon. Here He entered a house and wished no one to know it, but He could not escape observation.  

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   Forthwith a woman whose little daughter was possessed by a foul spirit heard of Him, and came and flung herself at His feet.  

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   She was a Gentile woman, a Syro-phoenician by nation: and again and again she begged Him to expel the demon from her daughter.  

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   'Let the children first eat all they want,' He said; 'it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.'  

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   'True, Sir,' she replied, 'and yet the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps.'  

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   'For those words of yours, go home,' He replied; 'the demon has gone out of your daughter.'  

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   So she went home, and found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.  

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   Returning from the neighbourhood of Tyre, He came by way of Sidon to the Lake of Galilee, passing through the district of the Ten Towns.  

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   Here they brought to Him a deaf man that stammered, on whom they begged Him to lay His hands.  

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   So Jesus taking him aside, apart from the crowd, put His fingers into his ears, and spat, and moistened his tongue;  

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   and looking up to Heaven He sighed, and said to him, 'Ephphatha!' (that is, 'Open!')  

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   And the man's ears were opened, and his tongue became untied, and he began to speak perfectly.  

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   Then Jesus charged them to tell no one; but the more He charged them, all the more did they spread the news far and wide.  

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   The amazement was extreme. 'He succeeds in everything he attempts,' they exclaimed; 'he even makes deaf men hear and dumb men speak!'  

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