Matthew 12:34

12:34 Offspring of vipers! How are you able to say anything good, since you are evil? For the mouth speaks from what fills the heart.

Matthew 13:35

13:35 This fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet: ¹ 

“I will open my mouth in parables,

I will announce what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.” ² 

Matthew 15:11

15:11 What defiles a person is not what goes into the mouth; it is what ³  comes out of the mouth that defiles a person.”

Matthew 15:17

15:17 Don’t you understand that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and then passes out into the sewer? ⁴ 

¹ tc A few important mss (א* Θ Ë^1,13 33) identify the prophet as Isaiah, a reading that is significantly harder than the generic “prophet” because the source of this prophecy is not Isaiah but Asaph in Ps 78. Jerome mentioned some mss that had “Asaph” here, though none are known to exist today. This problem is difficult because of the temptation for scribes to delete the reference to Isaiah in order to clear up a discrepancy. Indeed, the vast majority of witnesses have only “the prophet” here (א¹ B C D L W 0233 0242 Ï lat sy co). However, as B. M. Metzger points out, “if no prophet were originally named, more than one scribe might have been prompted to insert the name of the best known prophet – something which has, in fact, happened elsewhere more than once” (TCGNT 27). In light of the paucity of evidence for the reading ᾿Ησαΐου, as well as the proclivity of scribes to add his name, it is probably best to consider the shorter reading as authentic.

² sn A quotation from Ps 78:2.

¹ tn Grk “but what.”

¹ tn Or “into the latrine.”