The next day, while those men were traveling on and not far from the town, Peter went up on the housetop about noon to pray. But he got very hungry and wanted something to eat. While they were getting it ready, he fell into a trance read more. and saw the sky opened, and something like a great sheet coming down, lowered to the earth by the four corners, which contained all kinds of four-footed animals, reptiles, and wild birds. A voice came to him, "Get up, Peter, kill something and eat it." But Peter said, "Never by any means, sir, for I have never eaten anything common, or not ceremonially cleansed." A second time the voice came to him, "The things that God has cleansed you must not call unclean." This took place three times; then all at once the thing was taken up into the sky.

And He called the people to Him and said, "Listen to this and learn it!

"See that you tell nobody a single word about it. Be gone, show yourself to the priest, and to prove it to the people, make the offering for your purification which Moses prescribed."

The Pharisees met about Him, and also some scribes who had come from Jerusalem. They had noticed that some of His disciples were in the habit of eating their meals without first giving their hands a ceremonial washing to make them clean. read more. For the Pharisees and all the Jews practice the customs handed down to them from their forefathers, and will never eat until they have carefully washed their hands, and they never eat anything brought from the market until they wash it; and they have many other religious practices which they got from their forefathers, as the washing of cups, pitchers, and pans. And so the Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, "Why is it that your disciples do not practice the customs handed down from our forefathers, but eat their meals without purifying their hands?"

and to offer the sacrifice in accordance with what is specified in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons."

The Pharisee noticed that He did not first wash before lunch, and was surprised.

But Peter said, "Never by any means, sir, for I have never eaten anything common, or not ceremonially cleansed."

But Peter said, "Never by any means, sir, for I have never eaten anything common, or not ceremonially cleansed."

that you abstain from everything that is offered to idols, from tasting blood, from the meat of animals that have been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves free from these things, you will prosper. Good-by."

Then Paul took the men along with him and on the next day went into the temple with them, purified, and announced the time when the purification would be completed, when the sacrifice for each one of them could be offered.

I know, and through my union with the Lord Jesus I have a clear conviction, that nothing is unclean in itself; that a thing is unclean only to the person who thinks it unclean.

Stop undoing the work of God just for the sake of food. Everything is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything when it makes another stumble.

Stop letting anyone pass judgment on you in matters of eating and drinking, or in the matter of annual or monthly feasts or sabbaths.

If once through fellowship with Christ you died and were separated from the world's crude notions, why do you live as though you belonged to the world? Why submit to rules such as, "You must not handle," "You must not taste," "You must not touch," read more. which refer to things that perish in the using, in accordance with human rules and teachings?

To the pure everything is pure, but to the impure and unbelieving nothing is pure, but their very minds and consciences are impure.