1 Corinthians 5

Worldwide English (New Testament)

5 I have heard a very bad report about you. I hear there are wrong sexual ways among you. Even the people who are not Jews do not allow wrong sex such as this among them. A man is living with his father's wife!

² Can it be that you are still proud? This should make you very sad. The man who has done this should be put out of the church meeting.

³ My body is not with you, but my spirit is. Just as if I were right there, I have decided what to do about the man who did such a thing as this.

⁴ Do this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. When you meet together my spirit will be with you. Then, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, give this man over to Satan. Let Satan punish his body. By this the man's spirit may yet be saved when the Lord Jesus comes.

⁵ Surely it is not right for you to be proud. Do you not know that only a little yeast in the bread will make all the bread rise?

⁶ Clean out the old yeast so that you will become like new bread. You are free from the old things. Christ, the Passover Lamb, has been killed for us.

⁷ Let us then remember the feast of Passover and have our bread. But let us not have our feast with old yeast in the bread. To do bad and wrong things is like that old yeast. But let us have it with new bread that has no old yeast in it. To be honest and true is like the new bread.

⁸ I wrote a letter to you. I told you not to be friends with people who use sex the wrong way [with a person they are not married to].

⁹ I did not mean the people of the world [people who are not Christians] - some of them use sex the wrong way; or always want more things; or steal; or worship idols. To keep away from them altogether would mean you would have to go out of the world.

¹⁰ But I wrote to you not to be friends with anyone who says he is a Christian and uses wrong sex, or always wants more, or has idols, or curses, or drinks too much strong drink, or steals. I told you not even to sit down to eat with such a person.

¹¹ Why should I judge the people who are outside the church? You are to judge the church people.

¹² God judges those who are outside. The holy writings say, `Send the bad person away from among you.'