Bible Strands
Acts 11:8
‘No, Lord,’ I said, ‘for nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Peter speaks to the heavenly voice while standing before a sheet of animals lowered from heaven. He answers immediately after being commanded to kill and eat.
The words — μηδαμῶς (mēdamōs) translates as “in no way” and κοινὸν (koinon) means “common” or “unclean.” The text records Peter’s statement that no common or unclean thing has ever entered his mouth.
The thread — The text connects to Hosea 9:3’s reference to unclean food in exile, Romans 14:14’s assertion that nothing is unclean in itself, and 1 Corinthians 7:14’s teaching on sanctification through a believing spouse.
Why it lands — The text states Peter’s refusal to eat until heaven corrects him. It requires the reader to abandon self-constructed purity boundaries when God explicitly declares something clean.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
But I said, Not so, Lord: for nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered into my mouth.
Cross-references
- Romans 14:14 I am convinced and fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean.
- Hosea 9:3 They will not remain in the land of the LORD; Ephraim will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria.
- 1 Corinthians 7:14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.
- Leviticus 10:10 You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the clean and the unclean,
- Leviticus 11:47 You must distinguish between the unclean and the clean, between animals that may be eaten and those that may not.’”
- Ezra 9:11 that You gave through Your servants the prophets, saying: ‘The land that you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the impurity of its peoples and the abominations with which they have filled it from end to end.
- Mark 7:2 and they saw some of His disciples eating with hands that were defiled—that is, unwashed.