Hebrew Names Version HNV
The Message Bible MSG
1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Goyim, that one has his father's wife.
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I also received a report of scandalous sex within your church family, a kind that wouldn't be tolerated even outside the church: One of your men is sleeping with his stepmother.
2 You are puffed up, and didn't rather mourn, that he who had done this deed might be removed from among you.
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And you're so above it all that it doesn't even faze you! Shouldn't this break your hearts? Shouldn't it bring you to your knees in tears? Shouldn't this person and his conduct be confronted and dealt with?
3 For I most assuredly, as being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has done this thing.
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I'll tell you what I would do. Even though I'm not there in person, consider me right there with you, because I can fully see what's going on. I'm telling you that this is wrong. You must not simply look the other way and hope it goes away on its own. Bring it out in the open and deal with it in the authority of Jesus our Master.
4 In the name of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, you being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah,
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Assemble the community - I'll be present in spirit with you and our Master Jesus will be present in power.
5 are to deliver such a one to Hasatan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Yeshua.
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Hold this man's conduct up to public scrutiny. Let him defend it if he can! But if he can't, then out with him! It will be totally devastating to him, of course, and embarrassing to you. But better devastation and embarrassment than damnation. You want him on his feet and forgiven before the Master on the Day of Judgment.
6 Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump?
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Your flip and callous arrogance in these things bothers me. You pass it off as a small thing, but it's anything but that. Yeast, too, is a "small thing," but it works its way through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast.
7 Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Messiah, our Pesach, has been sacrificed in our place.
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So get rid of this "yeast." Our true identity is flat and plain, not puffed up with the wrong kind of ingredient. The Messiah, our Passover Lamb, has already been sacrificed for the Passover meal, and we are the Unraised Bread part of the Feast.
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old yeast, neither with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the matzah of sincerity and truth.
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So let's live out our part in the Feast, not as raised bread swollen with the yeast of evil, but as flat bread - simple, genuine, unpretentious.
9 I wrote to you in my letter to have no company with sexual sinners;
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I wrote you in my earlier letter that you shouldn't make yourselves at home among the sexually promiscuous.
10 yet not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world, or with the covetous and extortioners, or with idolaters; for then you would have to leave the world.
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I didn't mean that you should have nothing at all to do with outsiders of that sort. Or with crooks, whether blue- or white-collar. Or with spiritual phonies, for that matter. You'd have to leave the world entirely to do that!
11 But as it is, I wrote to you not to keep company, if any man who is named a brother is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. Don't even eat with such a person.
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But I am saying that you shouldn't act as if everything is just fine when one of your Christian companions is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can't just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior.
12 For what have I to do with also judging those who are outside? Don't you judge those who are within?
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I'm not responsible for what the outsiders do, but don't we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers?
13 But those who are outside, God judges. "Put away the wicked man from among yourselves."
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God decides on the outsiders, but we need to decide when our brothers and sisters are out of line and, if necessary, clean house.
The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.