Chapter Seven
And the Pharisees and some of the scribes, having come from Jerusalem, are gathered together to him. And having seen some of his disciples eating bread with defiled, that is unwashed, hands they found fault, because the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash the hands thoroughly, holding the tradition of the elders. And from the market, unless they wash they do not eat, and there are many other things which they have received to keep: washings of cups and pots and brass vessels and couches.
Then the Pharisees and the scribes question him,
“Why don’t your disciples walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?”
But he answering said to them,
“Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, hypocrites! As it has been written, ‘This people honour me with the lips but their heart is far away from me, but they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ For, forsaking the commandment of God, you keep the tradition of men: washings of pots and cups, and you do many other similar things.”
And he said to them,
“You surely make void the commandment of God, so that you may safeguard your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honour your father and your mother’ and ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him die the death!’ but you say - so long as a man says to father or mother, ‘Whatever you might have profited by from me, is “Corban”’ (that is “an offering”), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making the word of God void by your tradition, which you have delivered, and you do many similar things.”
And having called to all the crowd he said to them,
“Listen to me everyone, and understand! There is nothing from outside the man, entering into him, which can defile him; but the things which go out from him, those are the things which defile the man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen!”
And when he went from the crowd into a house, his disciples asked him about the parable.
And he says to them,
“So are you too without understanding? Don’t you see that everything which enters into the man from outside can’t make him unclean, because it doesn’t enter into the heart, but into the stomach and goes out into the toilet cleansing all the food!”
And he said,
“That which comes out of the man - that pollutes the man. For from inside, out of the heart of people evil thoughts go out: adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, greedy desires, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evils go out from inside and make the person unclean.”
And having risen from there he went away into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and having gone inside into the house he wanted no one to know, but he could not be hidden. For having heard of him a woman, whose little daughter had an unclean spirit, having come fell at his feet. Now the woman was a Greek, Syrophoenician by nation, and asked him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
But Jesus said to her,
“Let the children first be satisfied, for it isn’t good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
But she answered and says to him,
“Yes Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.”
And he said to her,
“Because of this saying, go, the demon has come out of your daughter!”
And having gone back to her house, she found the demon had gone out, and the daughter laid on the bed.
And again, having departed from the borders of Tyre and Sidon, he came to the Sea of Galilee through the midst of the borders of Decapolis.
And they bring him a deaf man who spoke with difficulty and they beg him to lay his hand on him. And, having taken him out of the crowd on his own, he put his fingers into his ears and, having spat, he touched his tongue and, having looked to heaven, he groaned and says to him,
“Ephphatha!”, that is “Be opened!”
And at once his ears were opened and the binding of his tongue was loosed and he spoke correctly. And he instructed them that they should tell no one, but the more he instructed them the more rather they proclaimed it. And they were absolutely amazed saying,
“He has done all things well: he makes both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.”
