Mark 7:14-37

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

¹⁴ Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: ¹⁵ there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”^[a]

¹⁷ When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. ¹⁸ He said to them, “So, are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, ¹⁹ since it enters not the heart but the stomach and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) ²⁰ And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. ²¹ For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: sexual immorality, theft, murder, ²² adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly. ²³ All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

The Syrophoenician Woman’s Faith

²⁴ From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre.^[b] He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, ²⁵ but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. ²⁶ Now the woman was a gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. ²⁷ He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” ²⁸ But she answered him, “Sir,^[c] even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” ²⁹ Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” ³⁰ And when she went home, she found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone.

Jesus Cures a Deaf Man

³¹ Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went by way of Sidon toward the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. ³² They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech, and they begged him to lay his hand on him.^{(A) 33} He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue.^{(B) 34} Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”^{(C) 35} And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.^{(D) 36} Then Jesus^[d] ordered them to tell no one, but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.^{(E) 37} They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”