16. If any man has ears to hear, let him be listening [and let him perceive and comprehend by hearing].
17. And when He had left the crowd and had gone into the house, His disciples began asking Him about the parable.
18. And He said to them, Then are you also unintelligent and dull and without understanding? Do you not discern and see that whatever goes into a man from the outside cannot make him unhallowed or unclean,
19. Since it does not reach and enter his heart but [only his] digestive tract, and so passes on [into the place designed to receive waste]? Thus He was making and declaring all foods [ceremonially] clean [that is, abolishing the ceremonial distinctions of the Levitical Law].
20. And He said, What comes out of a man is what makes a man unclean and renders [him] unhallowed.
21. For from within, [that is] out of the hearts of men, come base and wicked thoughts, sexual immorality, stealing, murder, adultery,
22. Coveting (a greedy desire to have more wealth), dangerous and destructive wickedness, deceit; unrestrained (indecent) conduct; an evil eye (envy), slander (evil speaking, malicious misrepresentation, abusiveness), pride (the sin of an uplifted heart against God and man), foolishness (folly, lack of sense, recklessness, thoughtlessness).
23. All these evil [purposes and desires] come from within, and they make the man unclean and render him unhallowed.
24. And Jesus arose and went away from there to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And He went into a house and did not want anyone to know [that He was there]; but it was not possible for Him to be hidden [from public notice].
25. Instead, at once, a woman whose little daughter had (was under the control of) an unclean spirit heard about Him and came and flung herself down at His feet.
26. Now the woman was a Greek (Gentile), a Syrophoenician by nationality. And she kept begging Him to drive the demon out of her little daughter.
27. And He said to her, First let the children be fed, for it is not becoming or proper or right to take the children's bread and throw it to the [little house] dogs.
28. But she answered Him, Yes, Lord, yet even the small pups under the table eat the little children's scraps of food.
29. And He said to her, Because of this saying, you may go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter [permanently].