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15 Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” [16 ][a]

17 [b](A)When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. 18 He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19 [c](B)since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)

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Footnotes

  1. 7:16 Mk 7:16, “Anyone who has ears to hear ought to hear,” is omitted because it is lacking in some of the best Greek manuscripts and was probably transferred here by scribes from Mk 4:9, 23.
  2. 7:17 Away from the crowd…the parable: in this context of privacy the term parable refers to something hidden, about to be revealed to the disciples; cf. Mk 4:10–11, 34. Jesus sets the Mosaic food laws in the context of the kingdom of God where they are abrogated, and he declares moral defilement the only cause of uncleanness.
  3. 7:19 (Thus he declared all foods clean): if this bold declaration goes back to Jesus, its force was not realized among Jewish Christians in the early church; cf. Acts 10:1–11:18.

12 For, until some people came from James,[a] he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to draw back and separated himself, because he was afraid of the circumcised.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 2:12 Some people came from James: strict Jewish Christians (cf. Acts 15:1, 5; 21:20–21), either sent by James (Gal 1:19; 2:9) or claiming to be from the leader of the Jerusalem church. The circumcised: presumably Jewish Christians, not Jews.