Clean and Unclean
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. Matthew 15:19 · Berean Standard Bible
Jesus lists what really comes from the heart: evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. It all starts inside before it ever shows up outside.
This list is uncomfortable because it's honest. Every sin you see in the world started as a thought in someone's heart. Guarding your heart is the first battle.
Jesus names the sins that flow from an unguarded heart.
Jesus pulls back the curtain on human nature. The heart, left unchecked, is capable of producing every evil. This is why transformation must start from within.
Jesus catalogs seven sins originating in the kardia: dialogismoi ponēroi (evil thoughts), phonoi (murders), moicheiai (adulteries), porneiai (sexual immorality), klopai (thefts), pseudomarturiai (false testimony), and blasphēmiai (slander). The list covers both action and speech sins.
This vice list parallels the second table of the Decalogue (commandments 5-9) and reflects standard Jewish ethical teaching. The inclusion of dialogismoi ponēroi as the root category is significant.
Jesus enumerates the sins that flow from the human heart.
Jesus provides a sobering inventory of what the human heart is capable of producing. Every sin on this list begins as an internal reality before becoming an external act.
17“Do you not yet realize that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then is eliminated?
18But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these things defile a man.
19For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander.
20These are what defile a man, but eating with unwashed hands does not defile him.”
21Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.
Read all of Matthew 15 — Jesus dismantles the purity codes the Pharisees have built and shows that what defiles a person comes from within, not without.
This page covers one. BibleKey does all 31,102 — tap any verse for its meaning, any word for its Hebrew or Greek root, and keep reading without leaving the chapter.
Not just the famous ones. BibleKey is free on iPhone and iPad.
Download on the App StoreFree on iPhone & iPad