Wickedness in the Church

5 It is actually being said that there is sexual sin among you. And it is a kind that does not happen even among people who do not know God. A man there has his father’s wife. ² And you are proud! You should have been filled with sadness so that the man who did this should be put out of your group. ³ I am not there with you in person, but I am with you in spirit. And I have already judged the man who did that sin as if I were really there. ⁴ When you meet together in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I meet with you in spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus, ⁵ then hand this man over to Satan. So his sinful self^[a] will be destroyed, and his spirit will be saved on the day of the Lord.

⁶ Your bragging is not good. You know the saying, “Just a little yeast makes the whole batch of dough rise.” ⁷ Take out all the old yeast so that you will be a new batch of dough without yeast, which you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. ⁸ So let us celebrate this feast, but not with the bread that has the old yeast—the yeast of sin and wickedness. Let us celebrate this feast with the bread that has no yeast—the bread of goodness and truth.

⁹ I wrote you in my earlier letter not to associate with those who sin sexually. ¹⁰ But I did not mean you should not associate with those of this world who sin sexually, or with the greedy, or robbers, or those who worship idols. To get away from them you would have to leave this world. ¹¹ I am writing to tell you that you must not associate with those who call themselves believers in Christ but who sin sexually, or are greedy, or worship idols, or abuse others with words, or get drunk, or cheat people. Do not even eat with people like that.

^12-13 It is not my business to judge those who are not part of the church. God will judge them. But you must judge the people who are part of the church. The Scripture says, “You must get rid of the evil person among you.”^[b]

⁴ When I wrote to you before, I was very troubled and unhappy in my heart, and I wrote with many tears. I did not write to make you sad, but to let you know how much I love you.

Forgive the Sinner

⁵ Someone there among you has caused sadness, not to me, but to all of you. I mean he caused sadness to all in some way. (I do not want to make it sound worse than it really is.) ⁶ The punishment that most of you gave him is enough for him. ⁷ But now you should forgive him and comfort him to keep him from having too much sadness and giving up completely. ⁸ So I beg you to show that you love him. ⁹ I wrote you to test you and to see if you obey in everything. ¹⁰ If you forgive someone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven—if I had anything to forgive—I forgave it for you, as if Christ were with me. ¹¹ I did this so that Satan would not win anything from us, because we know very well what Satan’s plans are.