1 Corinthians 5–6

Immorality in the Church

5^*Now, it is actually being said that there is sexual immorality among you so terrible that not even the heathen would be guilty of it. I am told that a man is sleeping with his stepmother! ²How, then, can you be proud? On the contrary, you should be filled with sadness, and the man who has done such a thing should be expelled from your fellowship. ^3–4And even though I am far away from you in body, still I am there with you in spirit; and as though I were there with you, I have in the name of our Lord Jesus already passed judgement on the man who has done this terrible thing. As you meet together, and I meet with you in my spirit, by the power of our Lord Jesus present with us, ⁵you are to hand this man over to Satan for his body to be destroyed, so that his spirit may be saved in the Day of the Lord.

^6*It is not right for you to be proud! You know the saying, “A little bit of yeast makes the whole batch of dough rise.” ^7*You must remove the old yeast of sin so that you will be entirely pure. Then you will be like a new batch of dough without any yeast, as indeed I know you actually are. For our Passover Festival is ready, now that Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. ^8*Let us celebrate our Passover, then, not with bread having the old yeast of sin and wickedness, but with the bread that has no yeast, the bread of purity and truth.

⁹In the letter that I wrote you I told you not to associate with immoral people. ¹⁰Now I did not mean pagans who are immoral or greedy or are thieves or who worship idols. To avoid them you would have to get out of the world completely. ¹¹What I meant was that you should not associate with a person who calls himself a believer but is immoral or greedy or worships idols or is a slanderer or a drunkard or a thief. Don’t even sit down to eat with such a person.

^12–13After all, it is none of my business to judge outsiders. God will judge them. But should you not judge the members of your own fellowship? As the scripture says, “Remove the evil person from your group.”

Lawsuits against Fellow-Christians

6If any of you have a dispute with another Christian, how dare you go before heathen judges instead of letting God’s people settle the matter? ²Don’t you know that God’s people will judge the world? Well, then, if you are to judge the world, aren’t you capable of judging small matters? ³Do you not know that we shall judge the angels? How much more, then, the things of this life! ⁴If such matters come up, are you going to take them to be settled by people who have no standing in the church? ⁵Shame on you! Surely there is at least one wise person in your fellowship who can settle a dispute between fellow-Christians. ⁶Instead, one Christian goes to court against another and lets unbelievers judge the case!

⁷The very fact that you have legal disputes among yourselves shows that you have failed completely. Would it not be better for you to be wronged? Would it not be better for you to be robbed? ⁸Instead, you yourselves wrong one another and rob one another, even your own brothers and sisters! ⁹Surely you know that the wicked will not possess God’s Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral or who worship idols or are adulterers or homosexual perverts ¹⁰or who steal or are greedy or are drunkards or who slander others or are thieves—none of these will possess God’s Kingdom. ¹¹Some of you were like that. But you have been purified from sin; you have been dedicated to God; you have been put right with God by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Use Your Bodies for God’s Glory

^12*Someone will say, “I am allowed to do anything.” Yes; but not everything is good for you. I could say that I am allowed to do anything, but I am not going to let anything make me its slave. ¹³Someone else will say, “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food.” Yes; but God will put an end to both. The body is not to be used for sexual immorality, but to serve the Lord; and the Lord provides for the body. ¹⁴God raised the Lord from death, and he will also raise us by his power.

¹⁵You know that your bodies are parts of the body of Christ. Shall I take a part of Christ’s body and make it part of the body of a prostitute? Impossible! ^16*Or perhaps you don’t know that the man who joins his body to a prostitute becomes physically one with her? The scripture says quite plainly, “The two will become one body.” ¹⁷But he who joins himself to the Lord becomes spiritually one with him.

¹⁸Avoid immorality. Any other sin a man commits does not affect his body; but the man who is guilty of sexual immorality sins against his own body. ^19*Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God; ²⁰he bought you for a price. So use your bodies for God’s glory.