This verse is remarkable for the number of synonyms that Paul uses to describe the idea of “revealing” or “making clear.” These synonyms are become manifest, will disclose it, and it will be revealed.

Good News Bible‘s “the quality of” is implicit in the Greek and becomes explicit in the last part of the verse, where Paul says that “fire will test it and show its real quality.”

The phrase will become manifest or “will be seen” (Good News Bible) may be expressed as “will be revealed” or “will be known.” But in languages that do not commonly use the passive voice or may not have the passive voice, one may say “people will see.” It may also be helpful to place this phrase at the beginning of this verse and say “And people will see the quality of … when the Day of Christ….”

The Day is one of the expressions used in the Old Testament of the time when God will judge his people, or the world. In the New Testament it has the added meaning of the day of Christ’s return (see 1 Thes 5.4 and also 1 Cor 1.8). Good News Bible translates “Day of Christ” because throughout this passage Paul shows that Christ is central to God’s purposes from beginning to end (see verses 11, 23). If, however, “Day of Christ” is not clear to the intended readers of the translation, the Day may be translated “the Day of Judgment” or “the day when Christ comes to judge.”

For the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire: the Greek may mean (1) “the Day is revealed in (or, by) fire,” that is, fire will be a sign of the Day of Judgment, or less probably (2) “each person’s work is revealed by fire,” that is, by whether or not it can be burnt. The reasons for (1) are that “Day” is the nearest noun in the Greek that can serve as the subject of the verb be revealed, and that (2) would make Paul repeat himself. Revised Standard Version is ambiguous. Bible en français courant clearly picks (1): “that day will manifest itself by fire.” Out of all the translations that we consulted, only Good News Bible explicitly chooses (2). Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has just one sentence, reducing the seeming repetition in the Greek: “On that day, the worth of each person’s work will be tested in fire.” Another way to express this is: “on that day fire will test each person’s work to show its quality (or, worth).”

Test does not seem to be used in the technical sense of testing or proving gold while refining it. The context speaks of destruction and survival on the Day of Judgment, rather than speaking of purification. It is therefore better to use an expression that has the wider meaning of a test that one either passes or fails.

Some Greek manuscripts add “itself” between the fire and will test. Some copyists may have omitted this word because it adds nothing to the sense. But others may have added it to strengthen the sentence. The emphatic “itself” following a noun is rare in Paul’s writings. So it is probably better to omit “itself”; the UBS Greek text puts this word in square brackets.

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 .

Good News Bible adds “Now” to show that Paul is changing his theme.

Actually is the first word in the Greek text. It is not used elsewhere in the New Testament at the beginning of a sentence. In other places it has the meaning “(not) at all”; see Matt 5.34; 1 Cor 15.29; and perhaps 6.7. Outside the New Testament this word usually means “everywhere,” and several translations take this to be the meaning here, for instance Bible en français courant, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente. Actually fits the context better (so New International Version, Revised English Bible). However, no matter which meaning is taken, the translator should use an emphatic word or expression here. Actually may also be translated as “it is a fact that,” or “it’s the truth that.”

It is … reported is literally “It is heard.” We do not find this expression again in Paul’s writings, but the same passive verb, in the past tense, is translated by Good News Bible as “the news spread” in Mark 2.1. Translators may feel that it is more natural in their languages to replace “it is heard” by “people are saying” or “people have actually told me.” Paul uses a passive verb in the Greek and thus avoids naming the person or persons who have given him this information. His reticence in naming his informants may indicate that he wanted to approach the matter of immorality gently. The phrase It is actually reported may be translated as “They have told me,” “They have actually told me,” or “It’s a fact that they have told me.”

The second part of the verse in the Greek adds emphasis by repeating some of the words and information that are found in the first part. Good News Bible, though, combines the two parts, and adds the word “terrible” to convey the emphasis.

The word that Revised Standard Version translates as immorality originally referred to dealings with prostitutes. But it could be used in the wider sense as in this verse. The last part of the sentence and the following verses show that Paul is talking about the immorality of only one person or couple in the church. So Barclay translates this as “a case of sexual immorality.” It is important that the translator carefully considers the range of words for “sexual immorality” that are available in his language. This is not referring to ordinary adultery, which will be expressed in many languages as “sleeping with someone who is not one’s own spouse.” Here it is a more heinous variety that in many languages will need to be referred to as “incest.” Paul makes this clear in the next sentence, where he states that it is a form of immorality that even the pagans do not commit. So in certain languages one may have to say something like the following: “Now, people are actually telling me that there is a type of sexual immorality among you that even the heathen would not commit,” or “… that someone in your group is committing incest, a type that even the heathen would condemn.” “Sexual immorality” is the main theme both in this verse and in verses 9-11.

The clause there is immorality among you may also be translated as “someone in your group has committed sexual immorality.”

There is nothing in the Greek that corresponds literally to the Good News Bible phrase “would be guilty of it.” In fact, the Greek text is rather awkward. It says literally “and such sexual-immorality which not-even among the pagans, so-that a man have his father’s wife.” Many translations give the impression that pagans or heathen would not commit such sin. But the text probably means that the law and customs even of pagans would not allow it. Phillips translates this as “immorality of a kind that even pagans condemn.”

Pagans is a negative reference to non-Jews. One should avoid rendering this as, for example, “other peoples,” since there were almost certainly non-Jews as well as Jews among the Christians in Corinth. However, in a wider sense one may translate this phrase as “people who do not worship the true God.”

The last part of the verse contains two features in the Greek that a literal translation tends to miss. First, the tense of the verb living with (“have” in Greek) shows that this man was committing sexual immorality continually, not just once. This word can be rendered as “is sleeping with” (Good News Bible) or “is living with.” These are common English euphemisms or roundabout ways of referring to sexual intercourse. Translators may need to find appropriate euphemisms for sexual intercourse in their own languages. Second, the Greek expression father’s wife almost certainly means the man’s stepmother, not his own mother. Good News Bible has translated it in this way (also New Jerusalem Bible, Revised English Bible).

An alternative translation model for this verse is:
• Now, it’s a fact (or, it’s true) that people are telling me that someone in your group is sinning by sleeping with his stepmother. Even people who do not worship the true God don’t allow (or, condemn) sin like that.

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 .

As in verse 5, Paul uses a euphemism, give to his wife her conjugal rights, to stress the fact that husband and wife ought normally to have sexual relations with each other. In many languages it will seem strange to speak of sex within marriage as a duty. Paul is not speaking in legal terms either, as Revised Standard Version suggests. Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente has “the man should give himself to his own wife, and similarly the wife give herself to her own husband.” Translators should use a natural euphemism that gives the meaning “husbands and wives should respect the sexual desires of each other.”

The husband, the wife means “any husband,” “any wife.”

The second half of verses 3 and 4 is introduced by a phrase meaning “but similarly also,” translated here as likewise. This phrase in Greek may slightly emphasize the second half of the verse. In any case, the structure of the two verses excludes any suggestion that Paul is emphasizing the wife’s duties more than those of the husband, or the other way around. The pattern is:

(see pattern|fig:Table_1CO7-3.jpg).

Such a pattern is known as a chiasmus and is common in many languages. But in some languages it may be unnatural. If the translator changes the order, care should be taken to give equal emphasis to what is said about husbands and about wives. In some languages one may restructure this verse as follows: “Both the husband and wife should fulfill their conjugal duties to each other.”

Should: see comments on 1 Cor. 7.2. If people are married, they ought normally to have sexual relations with one another.

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 .

This verse is a single sentence in Greek. The first part of the sentence suggests that Paul is giving advice that he feels is useful but not absolutely necessary to follow. He has not been speaking of matters that are clearly right or wrong, but of how he thinks Christians should best live in the short time before the last days. Good News Bible‘s “I want to,” “I am … trying,” and “I want” help to bring out Paul’s feelings more clearly than Revised Standard Version‘s rather literal translation.

One may translate I say this as “I talk to you like this” or “I have said all these things to you….”

Restraint: the image is that of putting a halter around the neck of a domestic animal (compare 2 Cor 1.24). This whole sentence not to lay any restraint upon you may be translated as “I am not trying to restrain you in any way” or “I am not … to put a restrictive burden on you.”

There may be an implied contrast between any restraint and undivided devotion. In this case the implied meaning is “far from trying to restrict you, I want to help you serve the Lord without being restricted in any way.”

To promote good order refers to decent behavior rather than to church discipline. Another way to render this sentence is “I want you to live in a right and proper way.”

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 .

This verse appears to refer to the saying of Jesus that is recorded in Matt 10.10 and Luke 10.7, and is quoted in 1 Tim 5.18 alongside an Old Testament text (see also Gal 6.6). The sentence does not mean that Jesus gave an order directly to teachers of the gospel, but that he gave instructions concerning how these teachers should support themselves. The Greek has simply “live,” but both Revised Standard Version and Good News Bible correctly expand this to get their living. The meaning is determined both by the immediate context and by “get their food” in verse 13. The final phrase should get their living by the gospel may also be rendered as “should support themselves from preaching the Good News.”

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 .