Mark 7:14-24

14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.

15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.^[a] ”

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.^[b] He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret.

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

Footnotes

• [a] Some manuscripts include here the words of 4:23.
• [b] Many early manuscripts "Tyre and Sidon"