15 ¹ THEN JESUS WAS APPROACHED by a group of Pharisees and lawyers from Jerusalem, with the question: 15 ² 'Why do your disciples break the old-established tradition? They do not wash their hands before meals.' 15 ³ He answered them: 'And what of you? Why do you break God's commandment in the interest of your tradition? 15 ^{4 [ Ex.20.12, Dt.5.16, Ex.21.17. ]} For God said, "Honour your father and mother", and, "The man who curses his father or mother must suffer death." 15 ⁵ But you say, "If a man says to his father or mother, 'Anything of mine which might have been used for your benefit is set apart for God', 15 ⁶ then he must not honour his father or his mother." You have made God's law null and void out of respect for your tradition. 15 ⁷ What hypocrisy! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

15 ¹⁰ He called the crowd and said to them, 'Listen to me, and understand this: 15 ¹¹ a man is not defiled by what goes into his mouth, but by what comes out of it.'
15 ¹² Then the disciples came to him and said, 'Do you know that the Pharisees have taken great offence at what you have been saying?' 15 ¹³ His answer was: 'Any plant that is not of my heavenly Father's planting will be rooted up. 15 ¹⁴ Leave them alone; they are blind guides Some witnesses insert: of blind men., and if one blind man guides another they will both fall into the ditch.'
15 ¹⁵ Then Peter said, 'Tell us what that parable means.' 15 ¹⁶ Jesus answered, 'Are you still as dull as the rest? 15 ¹⁷ Do you not see that whatever goes in by the mouth passes into the stomach and so is discharged into the drain? 15 ¹⁸ But what comes out of the mouth has its origins in the heart; and that is what defiles a man. 15 ¹⁹ Wicked thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury, slander—these all proceed from the heart; 15 ²⁰ and these are the things that defile a man; but to eat without first washing his hands, that cannot defile him.'