Immoral Behavior and Church Discipline
5 It is reported everywhere that there is sexual immorality among you, and sexual immorality of such a kind which does not even exist among the Gentiles, so that someone has the wife of his father. 2 And you are inflated with pride, and should you not rather have mourned, so that the one who has done this deed would be removed from your midst? 3 For although I[a] am absent in body but present in spirit, I have already passed judgment on the one who has done this in this way, as if I[b] were present. 4 In the name of our Lord Jesus, when[c] you are assembled, and my spirit, together with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 I have decided[d] to hand over such a person to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, in order that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Clean out the old leaven in order that you may be a new batch of dough, just as you are unleavened. For Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. 8 So then, let us celebrate the feast, not with the old leaven or with the leaven of wickedness and sinfulness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 I wrote to you in the letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. 10 By no means did I mean the sexually immoral people of this world or the greedy people and swindlers or idolaters, since then you would have to depart out of the world. 11 But now I have written to you not to associate with any so-called brother, if he is a sexually immoral person or a greedy person or an idolater or an abusive person or a drunkard or a swindler—with such a person not even to eat. 12 For what is it to me to judge those outside? Should you not judge those inside? 13 But those outside God will judge. Remove the evil person from among yourselves[e].
Footnotes
- 1 Corinthians 5:3 Here “although” is supplied as a component of the participle (“am absent”) which is understood as concessive
- 1 Corinthians 5:3 Here “if” is supplied as a component of the participle (“were present”) which is understood as conditional
- 1 Corinthians 5:4 Here “when” is supplied as a component of the temporal genitive absolute participle (“are assembled”)
- 1 Corinthians 5:5 The words “I have decided” are implied from the statement “I have already passed judgment” in v. 3
- 1 Corinthians 5:13 Literally “from you of them”