Any one will be rendered in many languages as “any person.”

It is by no means certain that the verb that is translated destroy has the same meaning in the first and second clauses. The Greek word has the general meaning destroy, but sometimes has the narrower meanings “corrupt (morally),” “ruin (financially),” or “seduce (sexually).” None of these last three meanings is possible in the second clause, since God is the subject; but the meaning of the two clauses may well be “If anyone corrupts God’s temple, God will destroy him.” Bijbel in Gewone Taal uses different words having the same meaning, and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch uses the same words to show the play on words in the Greek. “Corrupts” would make a good connection with the thought that God’s temple is holy. Compare 2 Cor 6.14-7.1. Another way to express this is “If anyone causes God’s temple to become defiled (or, unclean), God will destroy that person.”

Him is emphatic; literally “that one” or “that person” (New Revised Standard Version). Good News Bible restructures the sentence to avoid using the masculine pronoun him.

For will destroy, some Greek manuscripts have “destroys,” but this is less likely to be what Paul wrote.

God’s temple is holy really means “God’s temple belongs to him alone.” See comment on 1.2.

And that temple you are is literally “which [plural] you [emphasized] are.” The meaning is “you individually make up God’s temple,” not “you yourselves are holy.”

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 2nd edition. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1985/1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .