Mark 7:17-27

17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable.

18 “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them?

19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them.

21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder,

22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.

23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

Jesus Honors a Syrophoenician Woman’s Faith

24 Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre.^[a] He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret.

25 In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at his feet.

26 The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

27 “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

Cross References

• 1. Mark 9:28
• 2. Romans 14:1-12; Colossians 2:16; 1 Timothy 4:3-5
• 3. S Acts 10:15
• 4. Matthew 20:15
• 5. S Matthew 11:21
• 6. S Matthew 4:24

Footnotes

• [a]. Many early manuscripts "Tyre and Sidon"