I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?
Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.
Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.
For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.
Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints?
Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts?
So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church?
On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your brethren.
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,
nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.
Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power.
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!
Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.”
But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman.
The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband.
The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I.
But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband
(but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife.
But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her.
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy.
Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace.
Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk. And so I direct in all the churches.
Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God.
For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord’s freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ’s slave.
Now concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord, but I give an opinion as one who by the mercy of the Lord is trustworthy.
I think then that this is good in view of the present distress, that it is good for a man to remain as he is.
But this I say, brethren, the time has been shortened, so that from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none;
and those who use the world, as though they did not make full use of it; for the form of this world is passing away.
But I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord;
but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife,
and his interests are divided. The woman who is unmarried, and the virgin, is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.
This I say for your own benefit; not to put a restraint upon you, but to promote what is appropriate and to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord.
A wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.
But in my opinion she is happier if she remains as she is; and I think that I also have the Spirit of God.
Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one.
yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.
However not all men have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.
But food will not commend us to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat.
But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.
For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died.
And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.
New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995
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