Study Desk

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.

Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.' "

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable.

"Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'?

For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.")

He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.'

For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,

greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.

All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' "