Dealing With a Case of Incest

5 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife.^{(A) 2} And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning^(B) and have put out of your fellowship^(C) the man who has been doing this?

Sexual Immorality

¹² “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial.^(A) “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. ¹³ You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.”^(B) The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord,^(C) and the Lord for the body. ¹⁴ By his power God raised the Lord from the dead,^(D) and he will raise us also.^{(E) 15} Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?^(F) Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶ Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”^{[a](G) 17} But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.^[b](H)

¹⁸ Flee from sexual immorality.^(I) All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.^{(J) 19} Do you not know that your bodies are temples^(K) of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;^{(L) 20} you were bought at a price.^(M) Therefore honor God with your bodies.^(N)