(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;

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].)

Now as the day began to decline the twelve came up to him and said, "Send the crowd off to lodge in the villages and farms around and get provisions there, for here we are in a desert place."

But they all alike proceeded to decline. The first said to him, 'I have bought a farm and I am obliged to go and look at it. Pray consider me excused.'

But as these are merely questions of words and persons and your own Law, you can attend to them for yourselves. I decline to adjudicate upon matters like that."

for the time will come when people will decline to be taught sound doctrine and will accumulate teachers to suit themselves and tickle their own fancies;