Deviant Behavior[a]
Chapter 5
Reports of Sexual Immorality. 1 There have been widely circulated reports of sexual immorality among you, immorality of such a nature that not even pagans practice—the union of a man with his father’s wife. 2 How can you be proud of yourselves? You should rather have been overcome with grief and expelled from the community anyone who acted in such a manner.
3 I for my part am with you in spirit, even though I am not physically present. I have already passed judgment on the man who did this, as if I were actually present. 4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you have all assembled together and I am with you in spirit through the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 you are to hand over this man to Satan to be destroyed in the flesh, so that on the day of the Lord his spirit may be saved.
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a small amount of yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 [b]Throw out the old yeast so that you may become a fresh batch of unleavened dough. And truly you already are, because Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of depravity and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 In my letter, I wrote to you not to associate with people who are leading immoral lives.[c] 10 Obviously, I was not referring to contact with people in the world who are immoral or with those who are greedy or thieves or worshipers of false gods, since to do this you would have to leave the world. 11 What I really meant to get across was that you should not associate with any brother or sister who is sexually immoral, greedy, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard or a robber. You should not even eat with such a person.
12 It is no concern of mine to judge those who are outside the fold.[d] It is your responsibility to judge those who are inside. 13 God will pass judgment on the outsiders. Banish the evil person from your midst.
Footnotes
- 1 Corinthians 5:1 Paul here denounces some behaviors as real scandals. He has confidence, nonetheless, that the power of Christ will transform the lives of the baptized.
- 1 Corinthians 5:7 These verses have been described as the earliest Easter homily in Christian literature. Paul urges the Corinthians to keep the feast of Unleavened Bread (which followed Passover) by living the Christian life in total dedication to God (see Rom 12:1-2; 1 Pet 2:5). The true Passover is the Death of Christ, which should give rise to a life of newness, purity, and integrity in the same way that during the feast of Unleavened Bread the old bread gave way to unleavened bread.
- 1 Corinthians 5:9 This earlier Letter has been lost, although some scholars suggest that a fragment of the original Letter can be found in 2 Cor 6:14—7:1.
- 1 Corinthians 5:12 Those who are outside the fold: non-Christians. A Jewish expression. See Mk 6:11.