New English Translation

Matthew 15:8-22 New English Translation (NET)

8. ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me,

9. and they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

10. Then he called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand.

11. What defiles a person is not what goes into the mouth; it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a person.”

12. Then the disciples came to him and said, “Do you know that when the Pharisees heard this saying they were offended?”

13. And he replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted.

14. Leave them! They are blind guides. If someone who is blind leads another who is blind, both will fall into a pit.”

15. But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.”

16. Jesus said, “Even after all this, are you still so foolish?

17. Don’t you understand that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and then passes out into the sewer?

18. But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these things defile a person.

19. For out of the heart come evil ideas, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

20. These are the things that defile a person; it is not eating with unwashed hands that defiles a person.”

21. After going out from there, Jesus went to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

22. A Canaanite woman from that area came and cried out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is horribly demon-possessed!”