Thematic Bible

Mark 7:1

The Pharisees and some of the scribes came from Jerusalem to gather around Jesus.

Mark 7:2

They saw that some of his disciples ate their bread with unwashed defiled hands.

Mark 7:3

(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat until they wash their hands. They practice the tradition of the elders.)

Mark 7:4

When they come from the marketplace they wash themselves before they eat. They follow many other rules. They wash their cups, and brass pots, and other vessels.

Mark 7:5

The Pharisees and the scribes asked: Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders. Instead they eat their bread with defiled hands?

Mark 7:6

He told them: Isaiah prophesied about you hypocrites. It is written: 'This people honor me with their lips but their heart is far from me.

Mark 7:7

They worship me in vain teaching as doctrines the commands of men.'

Mark 7:8

Speaking to the Pharisees and scribes He said: You abandon the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men.

Mark 7:9

You totally reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition.

Mark 7:10

Moses said: 'Honor your father and your mother. He also said: 'He that speaks evil of father or mother must die.'

Mark 7:11

But you say: 'If a man says to his father or his mother that which would benefit you is a gift to God,

Mark 7:12

he no longer has to do anything for his father or mother.'

Mark 7:13

You make the word of God invalid by your tradition.

Mark 7:14

He called the crowd again and said: Listen and understand!

Mark 7:15

Nothing that goes into a person from the outside can make him unclean. That which comes from inside of a man can make him unclean.

Mark 7:16

If any man has ears to hear, let him hear.

Mark 7:17

When he entered the house away from the crowd his disciples asked him to explain.

Mark 7:18

He replied: Do you not understand? Do you not know that which goes into the man from the outside cannot defile him?

Mark 7:19

It is because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach and is eliminated? All foods are clean.

Mark 7:20

That which comes out of the man defiles the man.

Mark 7:21

It is from the heart that evil thoughts come such as: fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,

Mark 7:22

coveting, wickedness, deceit, loose conduct, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

Mark 7:23

All these evil things come from within and defile the man.

Mark 7:24

Jesus went to the territory of Tyre and Sidon. He did not want anyone to know that he was staying in a house there. However it could not be kept a secret.

Mark 7:25

A woman whose little daughter had an evil spirit heard about Jesus. She went to him and bowed down.

Mark 7:26

The woman was a Greek Syrophoenician by race. She wanted him to drive out the demon out of her daughter.

Mark 7:27

He said to her: Let the children be fed first. It is not proper to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs.

Mark 7:28

She answered: Yes Lord, even the dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs.

Mark 7:29

Then he replied: Thanks to your answer you may leave for the demon has gone out of your daughter.

Mark 7:30

She went to her house and found the child on the bed with the demon gone.

Mark 7:31

He left the borders of Tyre through Sidon, through the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee.

Mark 7:32

They brought a deaf man with an impediment in his speech to him and asked him to lay his hands on him.

Mark 7:33

Jesus took him aside from the crowd privately, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat, and touched his tongue.

Mark 7:34

Looking up to heaven he sighed and said to him: Ephphatha, that is, be opened.

Mark 7:35

His ears were opened. His tongue was freed and he spoke plainly.

Mark 7:36

Jesus told them not to tell anyone. The more he told them not to talk the more they talked.

Mark 7:37

They were beside themselves with amazement saying: He makes even the deaf hear and the dumb speak.