9. Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition.
10. For 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.’
11. But 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.’
12. In this way, you let them disregard their needy parents.
13. And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.”
14. Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “All of you listen,” he said, “and try to understand.
15. It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.”
17. Then Jesus went into a house to get away from the crowd, and his disciples asked him what he meant by the parable he had just used.
18. “Don’t you understand either?” he asked. “Can’t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you?
19. Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.)
20. And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you.
21. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder,
22. adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.
23. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.”
24. Then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre. He didn’t want anyone to know which house he was staying in, but he couldn’t keep it a secret.
25. Right away a woman who had heard about him came and fell at his feet. Her little girl was possessed by an evil spirit,
26. and she begged him to cast out the demon from her daughter.Since she was a Gentile, born in Syrian Phoenicia,
27. Jesus told her, “First I should feed the children—my own family, the Jews. It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.”