Mark 7
7
The Traditions of the Elders
1The # 7:1–23 Mt 15:1–20 Pharisees # 7:1 Mk 7:3 and some of the scribes # 7:1 Mt 2:4 who had come from Jerusalem # 7:1 Mt 23:37 gathered around him. 2They observed that some of his disciples were eating bread with unclean # 7:2 Ac 10:28 — that is, unwashed — hands. 3(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, keeping the tradition of the elders. 4When they come from the marketplace, # 7:4 Mk 6:56 they do not eat unless they have washed. # 7:4 Heb 6:2; 9:10 And there are many other customs they have received and keep, like the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and dining couches. # 7:4 Other mss omit and dining couches,# 7:4 Lk 5:18) 5So the Pharisees # 7:5 Mk 7:3 and the scribes # 7:5 Mt 2:4 asked him, “Why don’t your disciples live # 7:5 Lit walk according to the tradition of the elders, # 7:5 3Jn 1 instead of eating bread with ceremonially unclean # 7:5 Other mss read with unwashed hands? ”
6He answered them, “Isaiah # 7:6 Mt 3:3; 4:14; 12:17 prophesied # 7:6 Jn 11:51 correctly about you hypocrites, # 7:6 Lk 6:42 as it is written: # 7:6 Ac 15:15
This people honors # 7:6 1Tm 5:3 me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me.
7 They worship me in vain,
teaching # 7:7 Mt 28:20; Ac 4:2; 2Tm 4:11 as doctrines # 7:7 Rm 15:4 human commands. # 7:6–7 Is 29:13,# 7:7 Is 29:13; Col 2:22
8 Abandoning the command of God, you hold on to human tradition.” # 7:8 Other mss add The washing of jugs, and cups, and many other similar things you practice. 9He also said to them, “You have a fine way of invalidating God’s command in order to set up # 7:9 Or to maintain your tradition! 10For Moses # 7:10 Ps 77:20; Mt 8:4; Heb 3:2 said: Honor your father and your mother; # 7:10 Ex 20:12; Dt 5:16,# 7:10 Ex 20:12; Dt 5:16 and Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death. # 7:10 Ex 21:17; Lv 20:9,# 7:10 Ex 21:17; Lv 20:9 11But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or mother: Whatever benefit # 7:11 Mk 5:26 you might have received from me is corban’ ” (that is, an offering # 7:11 Heb 5:1; 9:9; 11:4 devoted to God), 12“you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. 13You nullify the word of God # 7:13 Mk 4:14; Lk 8:21; Jn 18:32 by your tradition that you have handed # 7:13 Jd 3 down. And you do many other similar things.”
14Summoning # 7:14 Lk 18:16 the crowd again, he told them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: # 7:14 Mt 13:13 15Nothing that goes into a person from outside can defile him but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” # 7:15 Some mss include v. 16: “If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen.”
17When he went into the house away from the crowd, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18He said to them, “Are you also as lacking in understanding? Don’t you realize that nothing going into a person from the outside can defile him? 19For it doesn’t go into his heart but into the stomach # 7:19 Php 3:19 and is eliminated” (thus he declared all foods clean # 7:19 1Jn 1:7). 20And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, # 7:21 1Th 4:3 thefts, murders, # 7:21 Pr 1:16 22adulteries, # 7:22 Nm 5:11 greed, # 7:22 Eph 5:3 evil actions, deceit, # 7:22 Ps 10:7 self-indulgence, # 7:22 Rm 13:13; 2Co 12:21; Gl 5:19; Eph 4:19; 1Pt 4:3; 2Pt 2:2,7,18 envy, # 7:22 Or evil eye slander, # 7:22 Jn 10:33; Rv 13:6 pride, # 7:22 Ps 17:10 and foolishness. # 7:22 2Co 11:1 23All these evil things come from within and defile a person.”
A Gentile Mother’s Faith
24He got up and departed from # 7:24–30 Mt 15:21–28 there to the region of Tyre. # 7:24 Many early mss add and Sidon,# 7:24 Ac 21:7 He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, but he could not escape notice. 25Instead, immediately after hearing about him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit # 7:25 Lk 11:24 came and fell at his feet. # 7:25 Lk 8:47 26The woman was a Gentile, # 7:26 Or a Greek (speaker),# 7:26 Ac 17:12 a Syrophoenician by birth, and she was asking him to cast the demon # 7:26 Mk 3:15; Rv 9:20; 18:2 out of her daughter. 27He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, because it isn’t right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” # 7:27 Ex 22:31
28But she replied to him, “Lord, # 7:28 Lk 10:1 even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
29Then he told her, “Because of this reply, you may go. The demon has left your daughter.” 30When she went back to her home, she found her child lying on the bed, and the demon was gone.
Jesus Does Everything Well
31Again, leaving the region of Tyre, # 7:31 Ac 21:7 he went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, # 7:31 Mt 4:18; 15:29; Mk 1:16; Jn 6:1 through # 7:31 Or into the region of the Decapolis. # 7:31 Mt 4:25; Mk 5:20 32They brought to him a deaf # 7:32 Lk 7:22 man who had difficulty speaking # 7:32 Ex 4:11; Is 35:6; 56:10 and begged Jesus to lay his hand on # 7:32 1Tm 5:22 him. 33So he took him away from the crowd in private. After putting his fingers in the man’s ears and spitting, # 7:33 Jn 9:6 he touched his tongue. 34Looking up to heaven, # 7:34 Mt 24:35; Lk 12:33; Ac 17:24; Eph 6:9; Rv 21:10 he sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphatha! ” # 7:34 An Aramaic expression (that is, “Be opened! ”). 35Immediately his ears were opened, # 7:35 Phm 10 his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak clearly. # 7:35 Lk 20:21 36He ordered them to tell no one, # 7:36 Mk 1:44; Lk 8:56 but the more he ordered them, the more they proclaimed it. # 7:36 Mk 1:4
37They were extremely astonished and said, “He has done everything well. # 7:37 Gn 1:31 He even makes the deaf # 7:37 Lk 7:22 hear and the mute speak.” # 7:37 Mk 9:17
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Mark 7: CSB
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© 2017 Holman Bible Publishers
Mark 7
7
Some people teach rules that don’t come from God
1-4There were some Jewish law teachers, and some of the Pharisee mob, that were strong for the Jewish law, they went from Jerusalem to see Jesus and his followers. A long time before that, those mobs made up a lot of rules that are not in God’s book. One of those rules that they made up was this. Before they could eat anything, they had to wash their hands in a special way, and after people came home from the shops, they had to wash that same way. There were other rules too, that those leaders made up, a long time ago. They had rules about the way to wash cups, and billycans, and cooking pots, and the chairs they sat on to eat their food. Those rules didn’t come from God.
After they got there from Jerusalem, they saw that some of Jesus’s followers didn’t wash their hands that special way before they ate food. 5So they said to Jesus, “Your followers are going wrong. They are not following the rules that our old leaders gave us a long time ago. They didn’t wash their hands the right way before they started to eat their food. You have to make them follow the rules properly.”
6Jesus said to them, “You mob tell everyone you are good, but really, you are not good. You know the man that was called Isaiah. He lived a long time ago, and he told God’s messages. He wrote true words about you, and they are in God’s book. He wrote,
‘These people show respect to me with their mouths,
but really, they think another way.
7They have ceremonies for me,
but, really, they rubbish me.
You see, they teach rules that men made up themselves,
and they tell everybody that those rules come from God.’#Isaiah 29:13
8You mob are just like that. You turn your back on God’s law, but you are strong on the rules that men made up.”
9And Jesus kept on talking to them. He said, “You mob are tricky in the way you turn your back on God’s law, and follow your own rules. 10You see, God told Moses to tell everyone to look after their old people. Moses wrote this law,
‘You have to respect your father and mother.’
And he also wrote,
‘You have to punish anyone that rubbishes their father or mother. You have to kill that person.’#Exodus 20:12; 21:17; Leviticus 20:9; Deuteronomy 5:16
11But you mob reckon that somebody can tell their father or mother, ‘I want to help you old people, but I’m sorry. I know that you need that thing, but I promised to give it to God, so I can’t give it to you.’ 12You reckon that if a person says that to their father or mother, they don’t have to help their father or mother. 13When you tell people that, you take God’s word away from them, so they will just follow the rules that you made up. You do all sorts of wrong things like that all the time.”
14Then Jesus called out to all the people to come and listen to him. He said, “Listen to me, everyone, and try to understand what I’m saying. 15-16It’s not the things you eat that make you no good. Don’t worry about what goes into you, but worry about what comes out of you. It’s the things that come out of you that make you no good.”
17After that, Jesus stopped talking to all the people, and he went into the house to take a break. His followers went in with him, and they asked him what he meant by the words he just told the people. 18-19Jesus said, “What’s wrong with you? You still don’t understand what I’m saying. Listen. If you eat something, it goes into your belly, then, some time later, it goes out of your body into the toilet. It doesn’t go into your brain. So God will not say, ‘You ate the wrong food and made yourself no good.’ No, he will not say that.” (Jesus said that about food, and he made it clear for us that every sort of food is all right.)
20-23Then Jesus kept on teaching his followers. He said, “People think inside their heads about bad things, and then they go wrong. They do those bad things, and that makes them no good. These are the things they might do.
– They might think about all sorts of bad things.
– They might sleep with somebody that is not their own husband or wife, and do what married people do together.
– They might steal things.
– They might murder somebody.
– They might sleep with somebody else’s husband or wife, as if they are married to them.
– They might be greedy, and try to get lots of money and things.
– They might do really bad things.
– They might trick people.
– They might do the first bad thing that they think about.
– They might want to get something that other people have.
– They might rubbish people.
– They might think that they themselves are great.
– They might only think about what they want for themselves, and do really stupid things.
All those bad things come from people thinking the wrong way inside their heads, and those things make people no good.”
A woman that was not Jewish trusted Jesus
24After that, Jesus left Galilee country and went north to a town called Tyre. The people that lived in Tyre were not Jewish people. Jesus and his followers stayed at somebody’s house there. He didn’t want other people to know that he was in that house. But a lot of people heard that he was there.
25-26There was a woman in that town that was not a Jewish woman. She was from a place called Fonisha, in Syria country. Her daughter had a bad spirit inside her, so that woman went to Jesus to get help. She got down on her knees in front of Jesus, to show him respect, and she asked him to force the bad spirit out of her daughter.
27Jesus said to her, “You know, a man gives food to his own kids first. He will not take their food and throw it to the dogs. Well, that is a picture of me. I belong to the Jewish nation. I have to look after my own people first, not you people that are not Jewish.”
28The woman said, “Yes, teacher, you are right about that, but while the kids in that picture story are eating, they drop a few little bits of food, and the dogs under the table can eat those little bits of food. So you can still do a little thing to help me, even though I’m not Jewish.”
29Jesus said, “That’s a good answer. It shows me that you trust me. You can go home now. I just made that bad spirit go out from your daughter.”
30Then the woman went home and found her daughter lying down quietly on a bed. The bad spirit was not in her any more.
Jesus made a deaf man better
31Then Jesus left Tyre and walked back through another town called Sidon. Then he went around the north of Lake Galilee to the country everyone called Ten Towns.
32Some people brought a man to Jesus. That man was deaf, and he couldn’t talk properly. His friends asked Jesus strongly to put his hand on their friend and make him better.
33Jesus took the man away from all the other people there and put his fingers in the man’s ears. He spat and touched the man’s tongue. 34Then Jesus looked up into the sky and prayed for the man. He talked in their language. He said, “Efatha.” That means, Open up. 35And straight away, that man could hear properly, and his tongue was better so he could talk properly.
36Jesus went back and told the people strongly, “Don’t tell anyone about the great thing I just did.”
But they didn’t listen to Jesus. Jesus kept on telling them not to talk about it, but they just kept on telling other people, “Jesus made that man better.”
37Everyone was really surprised, and they said to each other, “Jesus does everything properly. He does really good things for people. He makes deaf people better, so they can hear again. And people that can’t talk, he makes them better too, so they can talk.”
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