Book of Common Prayer

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].

²⁷ `You have heard that the law says, "Do not commit adultery [have another man or woman who is not your husband or wife]."

²⁸ But I tell you that if a man looks at a woman and he wants her, then he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

²⁹ `If your right eye makes you do wrong, take it out and throw it away. It is better to lose a part of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

³⁰ If your right hand makes you do wrong, cut it off and throw it away. It is better to lose a part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell fire.

³¹ `The law said, "Any man who does not want to keep his wife must give her a paper to tell others she is no longer his wife."

³² But I tell you, no man may send away his wife unless she has committed adultery. If he does send her away, he is making her commit adultery. And if a man marries a woman who has been sent away from her husband, he commits adultery.'

³³ `Also you have heard this said to men long ago, "You must not make a promise in God's name and break it." And, "You must do for the Lord what you said you would do."

³⁴ `But I tell you, do not make a promise in God's name. Do not use the name of heaven, because that is where God rules.

³⁵ Do not use the name of earth, because that is where God rests his feet. Do not use the name of Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King.

³⁶ Do not make a promise by your head, because you cannot make one hair of your head white or black.

³⁷ You must mean "Yes" when you say "Yes". You must mean "No" when you say "No". To say anything more than that is wrong.'