Do you not see … and passes on? is in the form of a lengthy rhetorical question which many readers will find difficult to decipher. In order to make it less difficult, Good News Translation divides the question into a brief question (“Don’t you understand?”) followed by a statement. As a careful reading of Revised Standard Version implies, the question intimates that the disciples do not yet understand, and so the anticipated reply would be a negative one.

The mouth may strike some readers as somewhat odd; Good News Translation has “a person’s mouth,” and Barclay “a man’s mouth.” New English Bible handles the problem in a slightly different fashion: “whatever goes in by the mouth.”

And so passes on (Revised Standard Version footnote “is evacuated”) is a reference to the evacuation of body waste through the bowels. In translation care should be taken that the way of stating this is natural, but yet not offensive. New English Bible renders “and so is discharged into the drain”; New Jerusalem Bible has “and is discharged into the sewer.”

The entire verse may be reformulated as two or more statements, thus avoiding any rhetorical questions: “You still don’t understand what I am talking about. I mean that whatever a person eats, first goes into his mouth, then into his stomach, and finally it goes out of his body.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .