It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is intolerable even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife.
Parallel translations
- WEB It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father’s wife.
- KJV It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.
- NKJV It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife!
- NASB It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and sexual immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, namely, that someone has his father’s wife.
- NLT I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you—something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
There is gross sexual immorality in the church—a man with his father's wife—shocking even to pagans. It matters because tolerated sin in the church dishonors Christ and corrupts the body.
Overview
Paul turns to a scandal: a member living with his stepmother, a relationship condemned even by Gentile standards and forbidden in the Law (Lev. 18:8). The Corinthians' boasting blinded them to flagrant sin in their midst. This opens a case study in church discipline, showing that the holiness of Christ's people cannot coexist with proud tolerance of open immorality.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 31
- Rev 21:8But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.”
- Rev 2:21Even though I have given her time to repent of her immorality, she is unwilling.
- Col 3:5Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.
- Lev 18:8You must not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; it would dishonor your father.
- Eph 5:3But among you, as is proper among the saints, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed.
- Gal 5:19The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery;
- 1 Cor 6:18Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a man can commit is outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
- Acts 15:29You must abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.
- 1 Cor 6:13“Food for the stomach and the stomach for food,” but God will destroy them both. The body is not intended for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
- 1 Th 4:7For God has not called us to impurity, but to holiness.
- 2 Cor 12:21I am afraid that when I come again, my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of their acts of impurity, sexual immorality, and debauchery.
- 1 Cor 5:11But now I am writing you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a verbal abuser, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
- Acts 15:20Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood.
- 1 Cor 6:9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts,
- Jer 2:33How skillfully you pursue love! Even the most immoral of women could learn from your ways.
- 2 Cor 7:12So even though I wrote to you, it was not on account of the one who did wrong or the one who was harmed, but rather that your earnestness on our behalf would be made clear to you in the sight of God.
- Ezek 16:51–52Furthermore, Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have multiplied your abominations beyond theirs, and all the abominations you have committed have made your sisters appear righteous.
- Ezek 16:47And you not only walked in their ways and practiced their abominations, but soon you were more depraved than they were.
- Amos 2:7They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the earth; they push the needy out of their way. A man and his father have relations with the same girl and so profane My holy name.
- Deut 27:20‘Cursed is he who sleeps with his father’s wife, for he has violated his father’s marriage bed.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’
- Deut 22:30A man is not to marry his father’s wife, so that he will not dishonor his father’s marriage bed.
- 1 Cor 1:11My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.
- 1 Chr 5:1These were the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel. Though he was the firstborn, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph son of Israel, because Reuben defiled his father’s bed. So he is not reckoned according to birthright.
- Gen 35:22While Israel was living in that region, Reuben went in and slept with his father’s concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard about it. Jacob had twelve sons:
- Lev 20:11If a man lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness. Both must surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.
- 2 Sam 16:22So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof, and he slept with his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.
- Gen 49:4Uncontrolled as the waters, you will no longer excel, because you went up to your father’s bed, onto my couch, and defiled it.
- 2 Sam 20:3When David returned to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to care for the palace, and he placed them in a house under guard. He provided for them, but he no longer slept with them. They were confined until the day of their death, living as widows.
- 1 Sam 2:24No, my sons; it is not a good report I hear circulating among the LORD’s people.
- Gen 37:2This is the account of Jacob. When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was tending the flock with his brothers, the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah, and he brought their father a bad report about them.
- Ezek 22:10In you they have uncovered the nakedness of their fathers; in you they violate women during their menstrual impurity.
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Christ crucified is the wisdom and power of God; he is our Passover sacrificed for us, the firstfruits of resurrection, the foundation on which everything is built.
How 1 Corinthians 5:1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
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