Bible verses about "immorality" | JMNT

²⁷ "You folks hear (or: heard) that it was declared, 'You will not continue committing adultery!' [Ex. 20:13] ²⁸ "Yet I, Myself, am now saying to you people that every man who is continuing in, or, repeatedly looking at and observing (constantly watching or leering at; = fantasizing over) a [married] woman, with a view toward the [situation, or, condition] to crave her (to experience strong passion for her, or, to desire to rush in a heat of emotion upon her), has already committed adultery with her, within his heart!

² Well, because of prostitutions (= the dangers of sexual immorality, or the lure of pagan temple prostitutes), let each man continually hold and be permanently having a wife (or: woman) for himself, and each woman be constantly holding and permanently having her own husband.

²¹ My God will [other MSS: may] not again be repeatedly humbling me toward you folks, at my coming, and yet I may mourn and grieve over many of those having before failed (missed the target; sinned) – continuing thus – and not even once repenting or changing their views upon the uncleanness and fornication (sexual immorality; prostitution) and loose conduct (blatant licentiousness) which they practice.

³ You see, this is the will (intent, purpose) of God: your state of being set apart from the common use or condition (or: sacred difference; = covenant living) – you are to continuously hold yourself from (be distant from; abstain from) all of the prostitution [note: figuratively, the worship of idols or false religions, and a break from covenant]. ⁴ Each one of you [is] to have seen and thus learned how, know and be aware of his own equipment (gear; utensils; instruments; vessel; = means of making a living), to progressively acquire (procure for one's self) in set-apartness (or: holiness) and honor (value, worth), ⁵ not in a feeling of excessive desire (or: in union with an experience of full-rushing passion), just as also the nations (ethnic multitudes; non-Israelites) [do] who, having not perceived, do not know (aren't aware of; aren't acquainted with) God.

³² "Yet I, Myself, am now saying to you folks that every man proceeding in dismissing (loosing-away) his wife – outside of a case of infidelity (fornication; prostitution; sexual misconduct) – proceeds in making her a subject of adultery. [comment: this would annul their then current practice for a man to be able to divorce his wife just for whatever reason he might choose; this statement by Jesus was a great advance toward cultural equality of the sexes]

¹³ The foods (The things eaten) [are meant] for the stomach, and the stomach [is meant] for the things eaten, yet God will make both it and them useless and unprofitable (or: will also bring this and these down to being idle). Now the body [is] not for prostitution (or: sexual immorality; or: = idolatry), but rather for the Lord – and further, the Lord [is] in (or: for; with) the body.

¹³ No trial (or: ordeal; temptation; putting to the proof; effect of probing and testing) has laid hold of or seized you folks except a human one (something pertaining to the human nature and situation). Now God [is] faithful, loyal, trustworthy, and full of faith and trust – One who will not permit (let, allow; or: let go; leave alone) you folks to be tested, tried, tempted or made to undergo an ordeal above (or: over; = beyond) that which you people continue having ability and power [to handle or endure], but to the contrary, together with the trial (or: ordeal), He will also continually make the way out (the egress; or: He also will habitually do the stepping forth from out of the midst; or: He will even progressively construct the out-come) to continually enable and repeatedly empower you folks to undergo [it] (to bear up under [it]; to carry on under [it], sustain [it], and lead on).

³ But all sexual vice (prostitution; fornication; sexual acts contrary to custom) and uncleanness (impurity), or greed (desiring or having more than one's due; gaining and having advantage over others), let it continuously not even be named among (or: within) you folks according as it is constantly appropriate (proper; conspicuously suitable and befitting) for set-apart people (or: holy and sacred folks).

⁵ Make dead (Put into a state of deadness; Deaden; = Kill), therefore, the [other MSS: your] members (body parts; = aspects of your life) upon the earth (= that pertain to this earthly existence): prostitution (fornication; sexual immorality), uncleanness, [unbridled] passion ([uncontrolled] feeling or [excessive] emotion), worthless over-desire (rushing upon bad things; obsessive evil cravings), and the desire to have more and gain advantage over another (or: selfish, greedy, grasping thoughts and behavior) – which is idolatry (the worship of forms, shapes, images or figures; or: service to pagan concepts)

⁸ "But for the timid (cowardly) folks and for faithless ones (unbelieving people) and for abominable folks (detestable ones) and for murderers, and for prostitutes and for sorcerers (enchanters; users of drugs) and for idolaters and for all the liars (the false ones): their portion [of the inheritance?] [is] within the lake (or: basin; artificial pool; marshy area) continuously burning with Fire and Deity, which is the Second Death."

²⁸ "Yet I, Myself, am now saying to you people that every man who is continuing in, or, repeatedly looking at and observing (constantly watching or leering at; = fantasizing over) a [married] woman, with a view toward the [situation, or, condition] to crave her (to experience strong passion for her, or, to desire to rush in a heat of emotion upon her), has already committed adultery with her, within his heart!

²⁰ Further, He continued saying, "The thing normally issuing forth from out of midst of the person (human): that thing habitually contaminates the person (makes the person ritually polluted, unclean and common), ²¹ "for, from inside of the person (man; human) – from out of the midst of the heart – the worthless reasonings (base conversations; dialogues of poor quality; evil thoughts and schemes; bad ideas and designs) constantly issue forth: [for example], prostitutions, acts of sexual immorality or involvements in fornication; thefts; murders; ²² "adulteries; situations of wanting more than one's share (thoughts of greed; feelings of coveting), bad conditions which bring pain, gushes of misery, anguish or hard labor (or: acts of wickedness; malicious deeds; evil doings); bait to catch someone with deceit, treachery, guile or fraud; loose conduct (indecency); an evil eye (= a focus toward malice or mischief); villainous and light-hindering slander, harmful and abusive speech, or blasphemy; pride, arrogance and haughtiness; acting without thinking (or: imprudence; unreasonableness; inconsiderateness; lack of purpose; folly). ²³ "All these bad situations and misery-causing things are habitually issuing forth from within, and repeatedly contaminate the person (continuously make the human common, polluted and ritually unclean)."

¹⁸ Constantly flee (Repeatedly take flight [from]) the prostitution. [note: this would also apply to idolatry in pagan temples which used prostitutes as part of the idol worship] The effect (or: result) of every sin (failure to hit the target; error; mistake) – whatsoever a person may do – exists being outside of the body. Yet the one habitually committing prostitution (practicing sexual immorality) is habitually sinning (sowing errors and mistakes) into his own body. [note: both his physical body, and the body of the called-out community]

⁴ Marriage [is] precious (of great value and honor) in the midst of all folks (or: among all peoples), and the conjugal bed [is] unstained and undefiled; yet God is continuously judging (or: repeatedly separating and making a decision about) fornicators (or: male prostitutes; or: men who have sexual intercourse with a prostitute) and adulterers.

¹⁹ Now the works (actions; deeds) of the flesh [religion] (or: = whose source and origin are the estranged human nature; or: pertaining to the flesh [system, or, nature]; or: = whose results and realm are the self in slavery to a system) [are] seen and made apparent in clear light, which are, and continue being, the works of a prostitute (or: [the] Prostitute): uncleanness (or: waste or worthless material, as of decayed flesh; a never-pruned tree; material that has not been sifted), excess (immoderation; outrageous behavior), ²⁰ idolatry (being a servant to or worshiping external forms or appearances, phantoms of the mind, unsubstantial or reflected images, or conveyed impressions) sorcery (employment of drugs and enchantments; magic rites; witchcraft), hostilities (enmities; alienations), strife (contentious disposition), jealousies (or: zealous emotions), stirring emotions (rushing passions; furies), factions, standings-apart (divisions), sects (religious denominations; parties with a particular opinion; the making of choices from preferences), ²¹ envies, murders, intoxications (times of being drunk), festal processions (or: excessive feastings), and things like to these [whether religious, or personal], which things I continue predicting (saying beforehand; or: = giving warning) to you folks, just as I said before, that those habitually practicing (or: performing) such [religious, or personal,] things will not be inheriting (receiving and enjoying a distributed allotment of) God's reign (kingdom; sovereign influence and activities).