Mark 7:5–15

⁵So the Pharisees and teachers of religious law asked him, “Why don’t your disciples follow our age-old tradition? They eat without first performing the hand-washing ceremony.”

⁶Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,

‘These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

⁷Their worship is a farce,

for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’

⁸For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.”

⁹Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition. ¹⁰For instance, Moses gave you this law from God: ‘Honor your father and mother,’^* and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’ ¹¹But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ ¹²In this way, you let them disregard their needy parents. ¹³And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.”

¹⁴Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “All of you listen,” he said, “and try to understand. ¹⁵It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.”