Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven works through the whole batch of dough?
Parallel translations
- WEB Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump?
- KJV Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
- NKJV Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
- NASB Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?
- NLT Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough?
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
Paul rebukes their boasting and warns that a little yeast spreads through the whole lump. It matters because unchecked sin, like leaven, corrupts the entire community.
Overview
Using a familiar proverb, Paul exposes the danger of tolerating sin: it does not stay contained but permeates and corrupts the whole congregation. Their misplaced pride ('boasting') ignores this reality. The image presses the church to act, lest one person's open sin infect the body's holiness.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Gal 5:9A little leaven works through the whole batch of dough.
- 1 Cor 15:33Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good character.”
- Jas 4:16As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil.
- 1 Cor 5:2And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been stricken with grief and have removed from your fellowship the man who did this?
- 1 Cor 4:18–19Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you.
- 1 Cor 3:21Therefore, stop boasting in men. All things are yours,
- Luke 13:21It is like leaven that a woman took and mixed into three measures of flour, until all of it was leavened.”
- 2 Tim 2:17and the talk of such men will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus,
- Matt 13:33He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and mixed into three measures of flour, until all of it was leavened.”
- Matt 16:6–12“Watch out!” Jesus told them. “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
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 5:6 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.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.