The Things That Make a Person Unclean^(A)

¹⁰ Then Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand! ¹¹ It is not what goes into your mouth that makes you ritually unclean; rather, what comes out of it makes you unclean.”

¹² Then the disciples came to him and said, “Do you know that the Pharisees had their feelings hurt by what you said?”

¹³ “Every plant which my Father in heaven did not plant will be pulled up,” answered Jesus. ^14 (B)“Don't worry about them! They are blind leaders of the blind; and when one blind man leads another, both fall into a ditch.”

¹⁵ Peter spoke up, “Explain this saying to us.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to them, “You are still no more intelligent than the others. ¹⁷ Don't you understand? Anything that goes into your mouth goes into your stomach and then on out of your body. ^18 (C)But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these are the things that make you ritually unclean. ¹⁹ For from your heart come the evil ideas which lead you to kill, commit adultery, and do other immoral things; to rob, lie, and slander others. ²⁰ These are the things that make you unclean. But to eat without washing your hands as they say you should—this doesn't make you unclean.”