2 Corinthians 6

¹Working together, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain. ²For he says, “At an acceptable time I heard you, and in a day of salvation I helped you.” Look, now is the truly acceptable time; look, now is the day of salvation. ³We put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that the service will not be found at fault. ⁴Rather, in everything we commend ourselves as God's servants: in great endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in straits, ⁵in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots, in labors, in sleepless nights, in fastings; ⁶in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love without pretense, ⁷in the word of truth, in the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left; ⁸through glory and dishonor, through bad report and good report; as deceivers and yet true; ⁹as unknown and yet well known; as dying, and look, we live; as disciplined and yet not put to death; ¹⁰as grieving yet always rejoicing; as poor yet making many rich; as having nothing and yet possessing everything.

¹¹Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. ¹²You are not cramped by us, but you are cramped in your own affections. ¹³And in the same exchange—I speak as to children—open wide yourselves as well.

¹⁴Do not become unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? ¹⁵What agreement does Christ have with Beliar? Or what share does a believer have with an unbeliever? ¹⁶What agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, as God said: “I will dwell among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” ¹⁷“Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; and I will welcome you, ¹⁸and I will be a father to you, and you will be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

Translation notes 10

6:1 — “Working together.” The Greek does not say with whom. “With God” is the usual understanding, following 5:20; “with you” is possible. The draft leaves it unexpressed.

6:2 — Isaiah 49:8. Quoted in the wording the letter gives it. The word for “acceptable” in the quotation and the intensified word in Paul's comment (“truly acceptable”) differ in Greek; the English marks the difference.

6:4–5 — “God's servants”; “straits”; “riots”; “fastings.” “Servants” continues the letter's service language. “Straits” renders a word for narrow, confining places, used again at 12:10 and as a verb in 4:8 and 6:12. “Riots” translates a word for disturbances or instability; at 12:20 the same word describes disorder inside the community. “Fastings” can be voluntary fasts or involuntary hunger; at 11:27 the same word stands beside a separate word for hunger.

6:6 — “In the Holy Spirit.” The Greek has no article, and the phrase stands in a list of human qualities; “in a holy spirit,” that is, in holiness of spirit, is a serious alternative.

6:7 — “For the right hand and the left.” Probably offensive and defensive weapons, a sword in the right hand and a shield in the left; the text does not specify.

6:11–13 — “Cramped”; “affections”; “the same exchange.” “Cramped” is the narrowness verb rendered “hemmed in” at 4:8. “Affections” renders a word for the inward organs as the seat of feeling. “The same exchange” is literally “the same recompense”: Paul asks for the widening of heart he has just described in himself. He addresses the Corinthians as his children, as at 12:14.

6:14 — “Unequally yoked.” The verb pictures animals of different kinds yoked together, as prohibited in Deuteronomy 22:10. The letter does not specify which relationships it has in view; marriage, idol feasts, and association with rival teachers have all been proposed.

6:15 — “Beliar.” A name for Satan or the power of evil, from the Hebrew word rendered “worthless” in the Old Testament; this spelling follows the Greek base.

6:16–18 — Quotations. The Greek base reads “we are the temple”; the Byzantine text reads “you are.” The quotations combine Leviticus 26:11–12 and Ezekiel 37:27; Isaiah 52:11 with Ezekiel 20:34; and 2 Samuel 7:14 broadened to sons and daughters, with echoes of Isaiah 43:6. The letter's wording is translated, not the Old Testament passages.

6:14–7:1 — Placement. This paragraph interrupts the appeal of 6:11–13, which resumes at 7:2. Some scholars regard it as a fragment from another letter or a non-Pauline insertion; the standard critical editions and commentaries report no manuscript evidence for its absence or relocation. The draft prints it without brackets, since the question is literary rather than textual.