Mark 7:20

Plain English Version

Then Jesus kept on teaching his followers. He said, “People think inside their heads about bad things, and then they go wrong. They do those bad things, and that makes them no good. These are the things they might do. – They might think about all sorts of bad things. – They might sleep with somebody that is not their own husband or wife, and do what married people do together. – They might steal things. – They might murder somebody. – They might sleep with somebody else’s husband or wife, as if they are married to them. – They might be greedy, and try to get lots of money and things. – They might do really bad things. – They might trick people. – They might do the first bad thing that they think about. – They might want to get something that other people have. – They might rubbish people. – They might think that they themselves are great. – They might only think about what they want for themselves, and do really stupid things. All those bad things come from people thinking the wrong way inside their heads, and those things make people no good.”

Cross References

Matthew 4:4

But Jesus told him, “No. I will not do that. You know what God says. These words are in his book, ‘People don’t live just by eating bread, but they live by every word that God says.’ ”

Mark 7:15

It’s not the things you eat that make you no good. Don’t worry about what goes into you, but worry about what comes out of you. It’s the things that come out of you that make you no good.”

James 3:6

In the same way each of us has a little tongue, and it is like a little spark of fire inside us. It can say really bad things, and tell lies, and then that can make the rest of our bodies bad. Our tongues can make everything in our lives go wrong, like a spark of fire can make a big bush fire. The devil, the boss over the bad spirits from hell, he makes us say those bad things. It is like he uses our tongues to start that fire, and it grows like a bush fire, and it gets us into a lot of trouble.

James 4:1

Why do you always fight and argue with each other? I’ll tell you why. It is because you only think about things that you want for yourself, to make yourself happy, and you don’t care about anyone else. So you fight everyone else to get the things you want.