Revised Standard Version gives the original order of the four short Greek sentences that make up these two verses. Good News Bible, like other common language translations, changes the order. As Good News Bible shows, two strands of thought are involved. One is a development from the misunderstanding that verses 9-11 have tried to clear up: Christians are not concerned to judge non-Christians. The second reinforces the instructions with which most of chapter 5 is concerned: wrongdoers are not to be tolerated in the Christian community. In the text, Paul moves from the first strand of thought (verse 12a) to the second (verse 12b) and back again (verse 13a). He concludes the second part of the argument with an Old Testament quotation (verse 13b). The line of thought is clearer if these two strands are separated as Good News Bible has done, so that emphasis still falls on verse 13b.
For (Good News Bible‘s “After all”) indicates a shift in Paul’s thinking. He now draws a general principle from the previous discussion of how his earlier instructions had been misunderstood. “After all” may also be rendered as “The truth is.”
The verb judge is the simple form of krinō (see 2.14 for a discussion of this verb and its compounds). In verse 13a it is uncertain whether Paul intended to write God judges or “God will judge” (Good News Bible). The difference between the two Greek words is only one of accents, but the oldest manuscripts do not have these accents. Most translations agree with Good News Bible, including New International Version and New Revised Standard Version; but Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente, Revised English Bible, and Jerusalem Bible, like Revised Standard Version, have the present tense. This would suggest the meaning “it is not my function, but God’s, to judge those outside.”
Outsiders clearly means “those outside the church,” or “people who are not Christians.” There is nothing in the Greek to suggest a bad meaning (see Mark 4.11; Col 4.5; 1 Thes 4.12).
Good News Bible understands what have I to do with judging outsiders as the negative statement “It is none of my business….” This interpretation is clearly the correct one. Verse 12b, the third sentence in Good News Bible, can be understood in the same way; for example, “It is your business to judge (insiders)” or “It is … to judge your fellow Christians.” However, Paul’s question about yeast in verse 6b suggests that he is not giving new teaching here but reminding the readers of what they have already heard. Verse 12b may therefore be understood more easily as a real question, as in Good News Bible.
The order of verse 13a (the second sentence in Good News Bible) emphasizes God, as in the English “it is God who will judge them.”
Good News Bible makes it clear that the final words of the verse are a quotation by adding “As the scripture says.” Paul’s first readers would have realized immediately that this was scripture, but modern readers may not, so translators should add this phrase. In some languages it may be necessary to say “as one reads in the Scriptures” or “as it is written in the Scriptures.”
The words that Paul quotes come at the end of various sections of Deuteronomy in which sins similar to those mentioned by Paul are condemned; see Deut 13.5 (13.6 in the Septuagint); 17.7; 19.19; 22.24; 24.7. In these Old Testament passages Drive out is a command using a singular verb, addressed to Israel corporately as if to an individual. In this verse the verb is plural, addressed to the church at Corinth. These words that were first addressed to Israel are now applied to the church, but this does not affect the translation. The wicked person in the Old Testament passage means “any evil person who commits this crime.” Paul may be thinking of the particular evil man whom he discussed in verses 1-5, in which case “the section concludes the way it began” (Fee); but in the light of verses 9-12 it may be that Paul now means “any such evil person.”
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 .