Take Your Disputes With Brothers To Wise Judges In The Church, Not To The World’s Courts
6 Does any one of you, having a matter against the other, dare to go-to-court[a] before the unrighteous ones, and not before the saints? 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy of the smallest cases[b]? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? Shall I not-indeed mention things-pertaining-to-this-life? 4 So indeed, if you have cases pertaining-to-this-life, are you seating[c] these [as judges]— the ones having been of-no-account[d] in the church? 5 I say this to your shame. So is there not among you anyone wise who will be able to discern[e] between his brother and this brother?— 6 but brother is going-to-court against brother, and this before unbelievers?
Better To Be Wronged Than To Wrong Your Brother With a Lawsuit
7 So indeed, it is already actually a defeat[f] for you that you have lawsuits with each other. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded[g]? 8 But you are wronging and defrauding— and this [your own] brothers!
Wrongdoers Will Not Inherit The Kingdom. But You Were Cleansed of Such Things
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived. Neither sexually-immoral ones, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homo-erotic-partners[h], nor homosexuals[i], 10 nor thieves, nor greedy ones— not drunkards, not revilers, not swindlers— will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And some of you were these things. But you washed-them-away[j], but you were sanctified[k], but you were declared-righteous in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
Do Not Be Sexually Immoral
12 “All[l] things are lawful[m] to me”, but not all things are beneficial[n]. “All things are lawful to me”, but I will not be mastered by any. 13 Foods[o] are for the stomach and the stomach for foods. But God will do-away-with[p] both this and these. But the body is not for sexual-immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. 14 And God both raised the Lord and will raise us up by His power.
Your Bodies Are Body-Parts of Christ: Flee Sexual Immorality
15 Do you not know that your bodies are body-parts[q] of Christ? Therefore, having taken-away the body-parts of Christ, shall I make them body-parts of a prostitute? May it never be! 16 Or do you not know that the one joining himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says [in Gen 2:24] “the two will be one flesh”. 17 But the one joining himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18 Be fleeing sexual immorality.
Your Body Is The Temple of The Holy Spirit. Glorify God In Your Body
Every sin which a person may do is outside the body. But the one committing-sexual-immorality is sinning against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit in you, Whom you have from God? And you are not your own[r], 20 for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.
Footnotes
- 1 Corinthians 6:1 Or, to be judged.
- 1 Corinthians 6:2 Or, courts.
- 1 Corinthians 6:4 Or, seat these... church! (speaking sarcastically).
- 1 Corinthians 6:4 Or, disdained, despised.
- 1 Corinthians 6:5 Or, decide, judge.
- 1 Corinthians 6:7 Or, failure.
- 1 Corinthians 6:7 Or, robbed, deprived.
- 1 Corinthians 6:9 Or, catamites. That is, males kept by older males for this purpose.
- 1 Corinthians 6:9 That is, males who engage in sex with other males.
- 1 Corinthians 6:11 Or, washed-away your sins; washed yourselves.
- 1 Corinthians 6:11 Or, made holy.
- 1 Corinthians 6:12 Paul may have said this to the Corinthians about Jewish food restrictions, as he does in 10:23. But they were wrongly applying it to sexual matters.
- 1 Corinthians 6:12 Or, permitted. Paul may be quoting their slogan.
- 1 Corinthians 6:12 Or, useful, profitable, advantageous.
- 1 Corinthians 6:13 This too could be their slogan.
- 1 Corinthians 6:13 Or, bring to nothing.
- 1 Corinthians 6:15 Or, limbs, members.
- 1 Corinthians 6:19 That is, you do not belong to yourself.