A person is defiled not by what enters his mouth, but by what comes out of his mouth.”
In this saying Jesus sharply challenges the Pharisees’ formal ritual demands, according to which not washing one’s hands before eating could make a person “unclean.” He turns attention away from the outward act to the inner person, emphasizing that true defilement does not come from physical food or bodily contact. The heart of Jesus’ words is the condition of the heart: evil thoughts—pride, envy, slander, lying, sexual immorality, and other sins—are born in a person’s heart, then come out through words and deeds, and it is these that truly defile a person. With this teaching Jesus reveals that purity before God is moral and spiritual in nature, not merely ritual. He teaches that a person’s transformation begins not with outward discipline, but with the renewal of the heart, because only from a cleansed heart can pure and truthful words come forth.