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1 Corinthians 5:8

Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
1 Corinthians 5:8 · New King James Version
Parallel translations
  • WEB Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old yeast, neither with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
  • KJV Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
  • BSB Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old bread, leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and of truth.
  • NASB Therefore let’s celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
  • NLT So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth.

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

Therefore believers should keep the feast with sincerity and truth, not malice and wickedness. It matters because the Christian life is an ongoing Passover lived in purity before God.

Overview

Continuing the Passover imagery, Paul casts the whole Christian life as a festival to be kept with the 'unleavened bread' of sincerity and truth, having purged the leaven of malice and evil. Because Christ our Passover has been sacrificed, our celebration is moral and continual, not merely ceremonial. The redeemed community is to embody integrity rather than corruption.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 30

  • 1 Pet 2:1–2Putting away therefore all wickedness, all deceit, hypocrisies, envies, and all evil speaking,
  • Deut 16:3You shall eat no leavened bread with it. You shall eat unleavened bread with it seven days, even the bread of affliction; for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste; that you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.
  • Exod 12:15“‘Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; even the first day you shall put away yeast out of your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.
  • Luke 12:1Meanwhile, when a multitude of many thousands had gathered together, so much so that they trampled on each other, he began to tell his disciples first of all, “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
  • Matt 16:6Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
  • Mark 8:15He warned them, saying, “Take heed: beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.”
  • 1 Pet 4:2that you no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.
  • Matt 16:12Then they understood that he didn’t tell them to beware of the yeast of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
  • 1 Cor 6:9–11Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals,
  • John 1:47Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and said about him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!”
  • Eph 6:24Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love. Amen.
  • 1 Cor 5:6Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump?
  • Isa 30:29You will have a song, as in the night when a holy feast is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goes with a flute to come to Yahweh’s mountain, to Israel’s Rock.
  • Ps 42:4These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me, how I used to go with the crowd, and led them to God’s house, with the voice of joy and praise, a multitude keeping a holy day.
  • Isa 25:6In this mountain, Yahweh of Armies will make all peoples a feast of choice meat, a feast of choice wines, of choice meat full of marrow, of well refined choice wines.
  • Ps 32:2Blessed is the man to whom Yahweh doesn’t impute iniquity, in whose spirit there is no deceit.
  • Num 28:16–17“‘In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, is Yahweh’s Passover.
  • Lev 23:6On the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread to Yahweh. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.
  • Eph 4:17–22This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,
  • Deut 16:16Three times in a year all of your males shall appear before Yahweh your God in the place which he chooses: in the feast of unleavened bread, in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tents. They shall not appear before Yahweh empty.
  • 2 Cor 1:12For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you.
  • 2 Cor 8:8I speak not by way of commandment, but as proving through the earnestness of others the sincerity also of your love.
  • 1 Cor 5:1It 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.
  • Josh 24:14“Now therefore fear Yahweh, and serve him in sincerity and in truth. Put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, in Egypt; and serve Yahweh.
  • Exod 13:6Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to Yahweh.
  • Matt 26:4–5They took counsel together that they might take Jesus by deceit, and kill him.
  • 1 Jn 3:18–21My little children, let’s not love in word only, or with the tongue only, but in deed and truth.
  • John 18:28–30They led Jesus therefore from Caiaphas into the Praetorium. It was early, and they themselves didn’t enter into the Praetorium, that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.
  • 1 Cor 3:3for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men?
  • 2 Cor 12:20–21For I am afraid that by any means, when I come, I might find you not the way I want to, and that I might be found by you as you don’t desire; that by any means there would be strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, whisperings, proud thoughts, riots;

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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 5:8 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.