The Tradition of the Elders

⁷Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him,²they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them.³(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders;⁴and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles. )⁵So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’⁶He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,“This people honours me with their lips,   but their hearts are far from me;⁷ in vain do they worship me,   teaching human precepts as doctrines.”⁸You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’ ⁹ Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!¹⁰For Moses said, “Honour your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.”¹¹But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban” (that is, an offering to God )—¹²then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother,¹³thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.’ ¹⁴ Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand:¹⁵there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’ ¹⁷ When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable.¹⁸He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile,¹⁹since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.)²⁰And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles.²¹For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder,²²adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.²³All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

³²But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.’³³Peter said to him, ‘Though all become deserters because of you, I will never desert you.’³⁴Jesus said to him, ‘Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.’³⁵Peter said to him, ‘Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.’ And so said all the disciples.

Jesus Prays in Gethsemane

³⁶ Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’³⁷He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated.³⁸Then he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.’³⁹And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.’⁴⁰Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, ‘So, could you not stay awake with me one hour?