Mark 6:54-7:8 (16th Monday after Pentecost)

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Mark 6:54-7:8 (16th Monday after Pentecost)

At that time, when they got out of the boat, immediately the people recognized him,  and ran about the whole neighborhood and began to bring sick people on their pallets to any place where they heard he was.  And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or country, they laid the sick in the market places, and besought him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment; and as many as touched it were made well. 

Now when the Pharisees gathered together to him, with some of the scribes, who had come from Jerusalem,  they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands defiled, that is, unwashed.   (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands, observing the tradition of the elders;  and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they purify themselves; and there are many other traditions which they observe, the washing of cups and pots and vessels of bronze.)  And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with hands defiled?”  And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;  in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’  You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men.”