Matthew 15:1-19 ▼

1 THEN Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem came up to Jesus, saying,

2 Why do your disciples disregard the tradition of the elders, and they do not wash their hands when they eat food?

3 Jesus answered and said to them, Why do you also disregard the commandment of God on account of your tradition.

4 For God said, Honor your father and your mother, and whoever curses his father and his mother, let him be put to death.

5 But you say, Whoever says to a father or to a mother, Whatever you may be benefited from me is Corban (my offering), he need not honor his father or his mother.

6 So you have rendered useless the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

7 O you hypocrites, the prophet Isaiah well prophesied concerning you and said,

8 This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me.

9 And they worship me in vain, when they teach the doctrines of the commandments of men.

10 Then he called the people and said to them, Listen and understand.

11 It is not what enters into the mouth which defiles man; but what goes out of the mouth, that is what defiles man.

12 Then his disciples came up and said to him, Do you know that the Pharisees who heard this saying were offended?

13 But he answered and said to them, Every plant that my heavenly Father did not plant, shall be uprooted.

14 Leave them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if the blind lead around the blind, both will fall into a pit.

15 And Simon Peter answered and said to him, My Lord, explain this parable to us.

16 And he said to them, Even yet do you not understand?

17 Do you not know that what enters into the mouth goes into the stomach, and thence, through the intestines, is cast out?

18 But what comes out of the mouth comes out from the heart; and that is what defiles man.

19 For from the heart come out evil thoughts, such as fornication, murder, adultery, theft, false witness, blasphemy.