Matthew 15:1–20

What Makes People “Unclean”?

15Some Pharisees and some teachers of the law came from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They asked, ²“Why don’t your disciples obey what the elders teach? Your disciples don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

³Jesus replied, “And why don’t you obey God’s command? You would rather follow your own teachings! ⁴God said, ‘Honor your father and mother.’ He also said, ‘If anyone calls down a curse on his father or mother, he will be put to death.’ ⁵But you allow people to say to their parents, ‘Any help you might have received from us is a gift set apart for God.’ ⁶So they do not need to honor their parents with their gift. You make the word of God useless in order to follow your own teachings.

⁷“You pretenders! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you. He said,

⁸“ ‘These people honor me by what they say.

But their hearts are far away from me.

⁹Their worship doesn’t mean anything to me.

They teach nothing but human rules.’ ”

¹⁰Jesus called the crowd to him. He said, “Listen and understand. ¹¹What goes into your mouth does not make you ‘unclean.’ It’s what comes out of your mouth that makes you ‘unclean.’ ”

¹²Then the disciples came to him. They asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were angry when they heard this?”

¹³Jesus replied, “There are plants that my Father in heaven has not planted. They will be pulled up by the roots. ¹⁴Leave them. The Pharisees are blind guides. If a blind person leads another who is blind, both of them will fall into a pit.”

¹⁵Peter said, “Explain this to us.”

¹⁶“Don’t you understand yet?” Jesus asked them. ¹⁷“Don’t you see? Everything that enters the mouth goes into the stomach. Then it goes out of the body. ¹⁸But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart. Those are the things that make you ‘unclean.’ ¹⁹Evil thoughts come out of the heart. So do murder, adultery, and other sexual sins. And so do stealing, false witness, and telling lies about others. ²⁰Those are the things that make you ‘unclean.’ But eating without washing your hands does not make you ‘unclean.’ ”