17 Monday 03-16
Matthew 15:10-20
10 Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand:
11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person,
but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”
12 Then the disciples approached and said to him,
“Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?”
13 He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.
14 Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind.
And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”
15 But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.”
16 Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding?
17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth
enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?
18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart,
and this is what defiles.
19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication,
theft, false witness, slander.
20 These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
It is not what we eat that makes us evil, but the expressions of an evil heart,
both word and deed, that are the sign of a sinful heart.