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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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I\I
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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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