Matthew 15

¹Then Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem come to Jesus, saying:

²Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.

³But he answered and said to them, 'Why do you also transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?'

⁴For God said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and, 'The one who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.'

⁵But you say, 'Whoever says to his father or to his mother, Whatever you might have been benefited from me is a gift to God,

⁶And you made void the word of God on account of your tradition.

⁷Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy concerning you, saying:

⁸This people draws near to me with their mouth and honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me.

⁹And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.'

¹⁰And having called the crowd to him, he said to them, 'Hear and understand:'

¹¹Not what enters into the mouth defiles the man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles the man.

¹²Then the disciples, having come near, said to him, 'Do you know that the Pharisees, having heard the saying, were offended?'

¹³But he answered and said, 'Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.'

¹⁴Leave them; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.

¹⁵And Peter answered and said to him, 'Explain this parable to us.'

¹⁶And Jesus said, 'Are you also still without understanding?'

¹⁷Do you not understand that everything that enters into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled into the latrine?

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

¹⁹For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, slanders.

²⁰These are the things that defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.

²¹And going out from there, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

²²And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying out, saying, 'Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is badly demon-possessed.'

²³But he answered her not a word. And his disciples, coming to him, kept imploring him, saying, 'Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.'

²⁴But he answered and said, 'I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.'

²⁵But she came and knelt before him, saying, 'Lord, help me!'

²⁶But he answered and said, 'It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs.'

²⁷But she said, 'Yes, Lord; for even the little dogs eat from the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.'

²⁸Then Jesus answered and said to her, 'O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.' And her daughter was healed from that hour.

²⁹And moving on from there, Jesus went along the Sea of Galilee, and going up on the mountain, he sat down there.

³⁰And great crowds came to him, having with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they laid them at the feet of Jesus, and he healed them.

³¹so that the crowd marveled, seeing the mute speaking, the crippled made well, and the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel.

³²And Jesus, having called his disciples to him, said, 'I have compassion on the crowd, because they have now remained with me three days and have nothing to eat; and I am not willing to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.'

³³And his disciples say to him, 'Where, in a desolate place, would we get so many loaves as to satisfy so great a crowd?'

³⁴And Jesus says to them, 'How many loaves do you have?' And they said, 'Seven, and a few small fish.'

³⁵And having directed the crowd to recline on the ground,

³⁶and he took the seven loaves and the fish, and having given thanks he broke them and was giving them to his disciples, and the disciples to the crowds.

³⁷And they all ate and were satisfied, and they took up what was left over of the fragments, seven baskets full.

³⁸And those eating were four thousand men, besides women and children.

³⁹And having dismissed the crowds, he got into the boat and came to the region of Magadan.