Matthew 15:10-20 - Defilement From Within

¹⁰ Then he called the crowd and said to them, "Listen, understand this: ¹¹ it is not what enters a man's mouth that defiles him, what defiles a man is what comes out of his mouth."

¹² Then the disciples came up and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees have taken offence at what they hear you say?"

¹³ He replied, "Any plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. ¹⁴ Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind, and if one blind man leads another, both of them will fall into a pit."

¹⁵ Peter answered, "Explain this parable to us at anyrate."

¹⁶ He said, "And are you totally ignorant? ¹⁷ Do you not see how all that enters the mouth passes into the belly and is then thrown out into the drain, ¹⁸ while what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart ??and that is what defiles a man. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil designs, murder, adultery, sexual vice, stealing, false witness, and slander. ²⁰ That is what defiles a man; a man is not defiled by eating with hands unwashed!"

¹⁴ Then he called the crowd to him again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand this: ¹⁵ nothing outside a man can defile him by entering him; it is what comes from him that defiles him. ¹⁶ If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen to this."

¹⁷ Now when he went indoors away from the crowd, his disciples asked him the meaning of this parabolic saying. ¹⁸ He said to them, "So you do not understand, either? Do you not see how nothing outside a man can defile him by entering him? ¹⁹ It does not enter his heart but his belly and passes from that into the drain" (thus he pronounced all food clean). ²⁰ "No," he said, "it is what comes from a man, that is what defiles him. ²¹ From within, from the heart of man, the designs of evil come: sexual vice, stealing, murder, ²² adultery, lust, malice, deceit, sensuality, envying, slander, arrogance, recklessness, ²³ all these evils issue from within and they defile a man."