16
If anyone has ears to hear, he should listen!"
17
When He went into the house away from the crowd, the disciples asked Him about the parable.
18
And He said to them, "Are you also as lacking in understanding? Don't you realize that nothing going into a man from the outside can defile him?
19
For it doesn't go into his heart but into the stomach and is eliminated." (As a result, He made all foods clean.)
20
Then He said, "What comes out of a person-that defiles him.
21
For from within, out of people's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders,
22
adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, lewdness, stinginess, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness.
23
All these evil things come from within and defile a person."
A Gentile Mother's Faith
24 He got up and departed from there to the region of Tyre and Sidon. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, but He could not escape notice.
25
Instead, immediately after hearing about Him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit came and fell at His feet.
26
Now the woman was Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to drive the demon out of her daughter.