Matthew 15:1-9 - Human Traditions And God's Commandments

¹ Then Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, ² "Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? They do not wash their hands when they take their food."

³ He replied, "And why do you transgress the command of God with your traditions? ⁴ God enjoined, Honour your father and mother, and, He who curses his father or mother is to suffer death.

⁵ But you say, whoever tells his father or mother, 'This money might have been at your service but it is dedicated to God,' ⁶ need not honour his father or mother. So you have repealed the law of God to suit your own tradition. ⁷ You hypocrites! Isaiah made a grand prophecy about you when he said,

⁸ This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me: ⁹ vain is their worship of me, for the doctrines they teach are but human precepts."

¹ Now the Pharisees gathered to meet him, with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem. ² They noticed that some of his disciples ate their food with 'common' (that is, unwashed) hands. ³ (The Pharisees and all the Jews decline to eat till they wash their hands up to the wrist, in obedience to the tradition of the elders; ⁴ they decline to eat what comes from the market till they have washed it; and they have a number of other traditions to keep about washing cups and jugs and basins [and beds].) ⁵ Then the Pharisees and scribes put this question to him, "Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders? Why do they take their food with 'common' hands?"

⁶ He said to them, "Isaiah made a grand prophecy about you hypocrites ??as it is written, This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me: ⁷ vain is their worship of me, for the doctrines they teach are but human precepts.

⁸ You drop what God commands and hold to human tradition. ⁹ Yes, forsooth," he added, "you set aside what God commands, so as to maintain your own tradition. ¹⁰ Thus, Moses said, Honour your father and mother, and, He who curses his father or mother is to suffer death.

¹¹ But you say that if a man tells his father or mother, 'This money might have been at your service, but it is Korban' (that is, dedicated to God), ¹² he is exempt, so you hold, from doing anything for his father or mother. ¹³ That is repealing the word of God in the interests of the tradition which you keep up. And you do many things like that."