Mark 7:5–15

⁵The Pharisees and the experts in Moses’ Teachings asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples follow the traditions taught by our ancestors? They are unclean because they don’t wash their hands before they eat!” 

⁶Jesus told them, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites in Scripture: 

‘These people honor me with their lips, 

but their hearts are far from me. 

⁷Their worship of me is pointless, 

because their teachings are rules made by humans.’ 

⁸“You abandon the commandments of God to follow human traditions.” ⁹He added, “You have no trouble rejecting the commandments of God in order to keep your own traditions! ¹⁰For example, Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’ and ‘Whoever curses father or mother must be put to death.’ ¹¹But you say, ‘If a person tells his father or mother that whatever he might have used to help them is corban (that is, an offering to God), ¹²he no longer has to do anything for his father or mother.’ ¹³Because of your traditions you have destroyed the authority of God’s word. And you do many other things like that.” 

¹⁴Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and try to understand! ¹⁵Nothing that goes into a person from the outside can make him unclean. It’s what comes out of a person that makes him unclean.