16. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!”
17. When He had entered a house away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him concerning the parable.
18. So He said to them, “Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him,
19. because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?”
20. And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man.
21. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
22. thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.
23. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”
24. From there He arose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden.
25. For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet.
26. The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
27. But Jesus said to her, “Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”
28. And she answered and said to Him, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.”
29. Then He said to her, “For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter.”