Mark 7:15-23

7:15 There is nothing outside of a person that can defile him by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles him.”

7:16 [[EMPTY]] ¹ 

7:17 Now ²  when Jesus ³  had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 7:18 He said to them, “Are you so foolish? Don’t you understand that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him? 7:19 For it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and then goes out into the sewer.” ⁴  (This means all foods are clean.) ⁵  7:20 He said, “What comes out of a person defiles him. 7:21 For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder, 7:22 adultery, greed, evil, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, and folly. 7:23 All these evils come from within and defile a person.”

¹ tc Most later mss add 7:16 “Let anyone with ears to hear, listen.” This verse is included in A D W Θ Ë^1,13 33 Ï latt sy, but is lacking in important Alexandrian mss and a few others (א B L Δ* 0274 28 2427). It appears to be a scribal gloss (see 4:9 and 4:23), perhaps introduced as a reiteration of the thought in 7:14, and is almost certainly not an original part of the Greek text of Mark. The present translation follows NA²⁷ in omitting the verse number, a procedure also followed by a number of other modern translations.

² tn Grk “And.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic.

³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn Or “into the latrine.”

⁵ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.