Book of Common Prayer

Scandal and judgment

5 Everybody’s talking about the sex scandal that’s going on in your community, not least because it’s a kind of immorality that even the pagans don’t practice! Well I never—a man taking his father’s wife! ² And you’re puffed up! Why aren’t you in mourning? Why aren’t you getting rid of the person who’s done such a thing?

³ Let me tell you what I’ve already done. I may be away from you physically, but I’m present in the spirit; and I’ve already passed judgment, as though I was there with you, on the person who has behaved in this way. ⁴ When you are assembled together in the name of our Lord Jesus, and my spirit is there too with the power of our Lord Jesus, ⁵ you must hand over such a person to the satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.

Get rid of the “leaven”!

⁶ Your boasting is no good. Don’t you know that a little leaven works its way through the whole lump of dough? ⁷ Cleanse out the old leaven, so that you can be a new lump, the leaven-free lump you really are. It’s Passover-time, you see, and our Passover lamb—the Messiah, I mean—has already been sacrificed! ⁸ What we now have to do is to keep the festival properly: none of the leaven of the old life, and none of the leaven of depravity and wickedness, either. What we need is leaven-free bread, and that means sincerity and truth.

On adultery and oaths

²⁷ “You heard,” Jesus continued, “that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ²⁸ But I say to you: everyone who gazes at a woman in order to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. ²⁹ If your right eye trips you up, tear it out and throw it away. Yes: it’s better for you to have one part of your body destroyed than for your whole body to be thrown into Gehenna. ³⁰ And if your right hand trips you up, cut it off and throw it away. Yes: it’s better for you to have one part of your body destroyed than for your whole body to go into Gehenna.

³¹ “It was also said, ‘If someone divorces his wife, he should give her a legal document to prove it.’ ³² But I say to you: everyone who divorces his wife, unless it’s in connection with immorality, makes her commit adultery; and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

³³ “Again, you heard that it was said to the people long ago: ‘You shall not swear falsely, but you shall give to the Lord what you promised under oath.’ ³⁴ But I say to you: don’t swear at all! Don’t swear by heaven (it’s God’s throne!); ³⁵ don’t swear by the earth (it’s God’s footstool!); don’t swear by Jerusalem (it’s the city of the great king!); ³⁶ don’t swear by your head (you can’t make one hair of it turn white or black!). ³⁷ When you’re talking, say ‘Yes’ when you mean Yes, and ‘No’ when you mean No. Anything more than that comes from the evil one.”