¹⁵ Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” ^[16] [a]

¹⁷ After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him^(A) about this parable. ¹⁸ “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? ¹⁹ For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods^(B) clean.)^(C)

¹² For before certain men came from James,^(A) he used to eat with the Gentiles.^(B) But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.^(C)