2 Corinthians 6
The full text of 2 Corinthians 6 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Greek. Free to read.
1 As God's co-workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain.
2 For he says, 'In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.' I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.
3 We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited.
4 Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses;
5 in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger;
6 in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love;
7 in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left;
8 through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors;
9 known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed;
10 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
11 We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you.
12 We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us.
13 As a fair exchange, I speak as to my children: open wide your hearts also.
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?
16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: 'I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.'
17 Therefore, 'Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.'
18 And, 'I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.'
Translation notes (5)
- 2 Corinthians 6:2a Paul quotes Isaiah 49:8 according to the Septuagint, where God addresses his Servant. In applying the text, Paul intensifies its key term: the quotation has dektos, 'acceptable', while his declaration uses the compound euprosdektos, 'fully acceptable', underscoring that the prophesied moment of favor has arrived.
- 2 Corinthians 6:14a The Greek verb heterozygeo, 'to be unevenly yoked', occurs only here in the New Testament. It recalls the law forbidding an ox and a donkey to plow together (Deuteronomy 22:10) and the related adjective used of mismatched animal pairs in the Septuagint of Leviticus 19:19, casting the alliance Paul forbids as an unnatural pairing of unlike kinds.
- 2 Corinthians 6:15a The Greek text reads Beliar (Βελιάρ), a form of the Hebrew beliyyaal, 'worthlessness', a term the Old Testament applies to base or lawless persons. By the Second Temple period, as in the Dead Sea Scrolls, it had become a proper name for Satan, and Paul uses it here in that sense as the antithesis of Christ. This is its only occurrence in the New Testament.
- 2 Corinthians 6:16a The citation is composite, weaving together Leviticus 26:11-12 and Ezekiel 37:27, both promises of God's dwelling presence with his covenant people. The Greek enoikeso, 'I will live in', and emperipateso, 'I will walk among', apply the covenant formula corporately to the church as naos, 'temple', the sanctuary itself rather than the wider temple precincts.
- 2 Corinthians 6:17a Paul adapts the Septuagint of Isaiah 52:11, where priests bearing the temple vessels are commanded to depart from Babylon without defilement. The closing promise, 'I will receive you', is not in Isaiah but echoes Ezekiel 20:34, where God gathers his people from the nations; Paul weaves the two exile texts into a single oracle.
About this translation
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