Mark 7:13-23

13 You scratch out God's Word and scrawl a whim in its place. You do a lot of things like this."
14 Jesus called the crowd together again and said, "Listen now, all of you - take this to heart.
15 It's not what you swallow that pollutes your life; it's what you vomit - that's the real pollution."
17 When he was back home after being with the crowd, his disciples said, "We don't get it. Put it in plain language."
18 Jesus said, "Are you being willfully stupid? Don't you see that what you swallow can't contaminate you?
19 It doesn't enter your heart but your stomach, works its way through the intestines, and is finally flushed." (That took care of dietary quibbling; Jesus was saying that all foods are fit to eat.)
20 He went on: "It's what comes out of a person that pollutes:
21 obscenities, lusts, thefts, murders, adulteries,
22 greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks, slander, arrogance, foolishness -
23 all these are vomit from the heart. There is the source of your pollution."
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.