1 Corinthians 5

¹Sexual immorality is actually being reported among you, and sexual immorality of a kind not even found among the Gentiles: someone has his father's wife. ²And you are puffed up! Should you not rather have mourned, so that the one who did this deed might be removed from among you? ³For I, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged the one who did this, as though I were present. ⁴In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you and my spirit are gathered together with the power of our Lord Jesus, ⁵hand such a person over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

⁶Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? ⁷Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump of dough, just as you are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover sacrifice, has been slaughtered. ⁸So 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.

⁹I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—¹⁰not meaning the sexually immoral people of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would have to leave the world. ¹¹But now I have written to you not to associate with anyone called a brother who is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or abusive, a drunkard or a swindler—not even to eat with such a person. ¹²For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not insiders whom you judge, ¹³while God judges outsiders? Remove the wicked person from among yourselves.

Translation notes 5

5:1–2 — The reported relationship. “Has his father's wife” describes a sexual or marital relationship with the man's stepmother, rather than merely sharing a house. The text does not say whether his father is alive. “Puffed up” continues the image of inflated pride from chapter 4.

5:3–5 — Handing over and destruction. The Greek sentence allows different connections among Paul's judgment, the assembly's gathering, and “in the name of our Lord Jesus.” The translation makes the gathering the setting for carrying out his judgment. “Destruction of the flesh” may mean bodily affliction or death, or the destruction of the person's sinful way of living. The wording retains flesh and spirit rather than deciding the mechanism; the stated purpose is salvation on the Lord's day.

5:6–8 — Leaven and Passover. Leaven is fermenting dough used to make a batch rise. Its spreading action pictures the effect of the tolerated conduct. “Passover sacrifice” makes explicit the sacrificial sense of Passover here; the Greek does not separately say lamb. The call to become unleavened follows the statement that they already are unleavened, without smoothing away that tension.

5:9–11 — The earlier letter and association. Verse 9 most naturally refers to an earlier letter, not otherwise preserved as an identifiable complete document. “Now I have written” can clarify that earlier instruction or introduce the present instruction. “Brother” identifies someone belonging to the community, including women in the wider application. Paul expressly distinguishes this restriction from withdrawing from everyone outside the community.

5:12–13 — Inside and outside. The question is punctuated to include God's judgment of outsiders; a separate statement, “God judges outsiders,” is also possible. Some Greek texts have the future “God will judge.” The final command echoes the recurring removal formula in Deuteronomy.