VicarFaithful calling

1 Corinthians 7 — Marriage, calling, and undivided devotion — Greek text and reception

Saints Translation: 1 Corinthians 1–16 [V2]

Each card preserves the Greek reading and its textual and reception notes. This source provides a Greek study edition; Hebrew counterparts and Hebrew–Greek classifications are not supplied.

1 Corinthians 7 — Marriage, calling, and undivided devotion

Mutual obligations and differing gifts

Verse 7:1

Greek–English Translation

Now concerning the things you wrote: it is good for a man not to touch a woman.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Touch is the sexual idiom retained from haptesthai. Whether the statement reproduces a Corinthian position or begins Paul's own advice is not settled by adding quotation marks.

Verse 7:2

Greek–English Translation

But because of cases of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 7:3

Greek–English Translation

Let the husband fulfill his obligation to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 7:4

Greek–English Translation

The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: The reciprocal construction is preserved in full. The following verse explicitly requires mutual agreement for the stated period of abstinence.

Verse 7:5

Greek–English Translation

Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by mutual agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer and then be together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Prayer is named without an added fasting phrase in the selected Greek.

Variant [SBL-1COR-APP 7:5]: Fasting alongside prayer is an RP addition in the apparatus.

Verse 7:6

Greek–English Translation

I say this by way of concession, not by way of command.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 7:7

Greek–English Translation

I wish that all people were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one in this way and another in that.

Textual and Reception Notes

Saints [CLEM-1COR 38]: Clement treats continence as a gift received from another, so its possessor should avoid pride. This is a thematic parallel, not an explicit quotation of this verse.

The unmarried and those already married

Verse 7:8

Greek–English Translation

Now I say to the unmarried and the widows: it is good for them if they remain as I am.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 7:9

Greek–English Translation

But if they do not exercise self-control, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Burn retains the image in pyrousthai; the surrounding discussion favors burning desire, without inserting an explicit word for punishment.

Verse 7:10

Greek–English Translation

To the married I give this instruction—not I, but the Lord: a wife is not to separate from her husband—

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 7:11

Greek–English Translation

but if she does separate, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband—and a husband is not to dismiss his wife.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Separate and dismiss preserve the two verbs; the parenthetical instruction does not erase either prohibition.

Marriage with an unbelieving spouse

Verse 7:12

Greek–English Translation

To the rest I say—I, not the Lord: if any brother has an unbelieving wife and she agrees to live with him, let him not dismiss her.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Paul distinguishes this instruction's attribution from the Lord-attributed command in 7:10; the translation does not infer that he disclaims all apostolic authority.

Verse 7:13

Greek–English Translation

And if any woman has an unbelieving husband and he agrees to live with her, let her not dismiss her husband.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 7:14

Greek–English Translation

For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified in the brother. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is they are holy.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: The selected second expression is in the brother, not in the husband. Sanctified and holy preserve the holiness vocabulary without silently substituting converted, legitimate, or baptized.

Variant [SBL-1COR-APP 7:14]: The apparatus assigns brother to WH, Treg and NA28, and husband to RP.

Verse 7:15

Greek–English Translation

But if the unbelieving spouse separates, let that one separate. The brother or sister is not enslaved in such cases; God has called us in peace.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Us is the selected pronoun. Not enslaved retains dedoulōtai; its implications for later remarriage require interpretation and are not inserted as an additional permission clause.

Variant [SBL-1COR-APP 7:15]: The apparatus gives us in Treg, NIV and RP, and you in WH and NA28.

NA28: ὑμᾶς, "God has called you" (SBLGNT ἡμᾶς); the rendering above follows SBLGNT; NA28 would read "God has called you in peace".

Verse 7:16

Greek–English Translation

For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: The paired questions retain uncertainty; they can support hope or warn against assuming a guaranteed outcome.

Remain with God in the calling received

Verse 7:17

Greek–English Translation

Only let each walk as the Lord has allotted to him, as God has called each one. This is what I direct in all the Churches.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Lord is the subject of allotted; God is the subject of called. Their order follows the selected source.

Verse 7:18

Greek–English Translation

Was anyone called when already circumcised? Let him not undo his circumcision. Has anyone been called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Epispasthō denotes drawing forward the foreskin to conceal circumcision; undo expresses the intended change without inventing a procedure.

Verse 7:19

Greek–English Translation

Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping God's commandments matters.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Matters supplies the elliptical contrast's English predicate; the stated priority remains keeping God's commandments.

Verse 7:20

Greek–English Translation

Let each remain in the calling in which he was called.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 7:21

Greek–English Translation

Were you called as a slave? Do not let it trouble you. But if you can indeed become free, make use of the opportunity instead.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: The final Greek is compressed, mallon chrēsai, rather/all the more make use. This rendering supplies the opportunity of freedom as its understood object. Another interpretation takes it as making use of one's present condition even if freedom is possible. The ambiguity is real; the verse is not rewritten as an absolute prohibition on emancipation.

Verse 7:22

Greek–English Translation

For the slave called in the Lord is the Lord's freedperson; likewise the free person who was called is Christ's slave.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Freedperson renders apeleutheros, distinct from simply free. The paired reversals retain both social terms.

Verse 7:23

Greek–English Translation

You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 7:24

Greek–English Translation

Brothers, let each remain with God in the condition in which he was called.

Textual and Reception Notes

Virgins and the present distress

Verse 7:25

Greek–English Translation

Now concerning virgins, I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who has received mercy from the Lord to be faithful.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Virgins retains parthenoi; neither an exclusively female group nor an unexpressed marital history is inserted into the heading of the discussion.

Verse 7:26

Greek–English Translation

I therefore think this is good because of the present distress: that it is good for a person to remain as he is.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: The present distress is the stated circumstance; no specific famine, persecution, or calendar date is supplied.

Verse 7:27

Greek–English Translation

Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek release. Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Released preserves the perfect lelysai sense without deciding whether the person is widowed, divorced, or simply unbound; the precise prior history is unstated.

Verse 7:28

Greek–English Translation

But even if you marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Yet such people will have affliction in the flesh, and I would spare you.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 7:29

Greek–English Translation

But I say this, brothers: the time has been shortened. From now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none,

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: The time has been shortened retains the perfect passive. The following comparisons do not remove the mutual obligations already stated in 7:3–5.

Verse 7:30

Greek–English Translation

and those who weep as though not weeping, and those who rejoice as though not rejoicing, and those who buy as though not possessing,

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 7:31

Greek–English Translation

and those who use the world as though not making full use of it. For the form of this world is passing away.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Use and make full use preserve the paired verbs; the second is not automatically an accusation of abusing the world.

Undivided concern for the Lord

Verse 7:32

Greek–English Translation

I want you to be free from anxiety. The unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's things, how he may please the Lord.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 7:33

Greek–English Translation

But the married man is concerned about the world's things, how he may please his wife,

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 7:34

Greek–English Translation

and he is divided. Both the unmarried woman and the virgin are concerned about the Lord's things, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. But the married woman is concerned about the world's things, how she may please her husband.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: In the selected wording and punctuation, and he is divided concludes the man's description. Then the unmarried woman and the virgin begin the next clause; the singular she follows the Greek's distributive singular. This is not replaced with a statement that a wife and a virgin differ.

Variant [SBL-1COR-APP 7:34]: The apparatus records the selected divided / unmarried wording under WH, Treg and NA28, with a different arrangement under RP.

Verse 7:35

Greek–English Translation

I say this for your own benefit, not to throw a noose over you, but for good order and undistracted devotion to the Lord.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Noose retains brochon, the restraint image; Paul's stated purpose is beneficial, undistracted attendance upon the Lord.

Decisions concerning a virgin and a widow

Verse 7:36

Greek–English Translation

But if anyone thinks he is behaving improperly toward his virgin, if she is past her prime and it ought to happen in this way, let him do what he wishes; he does not sin. Let them marry.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: His virgin does not explicitly name a daughter or a fiancée. This rendering follows the guardian interpretation, supported by giving in marriage in 7:38, while leaving daughter uninserted. Hyperakmos is taken as past her prime, the sense given in the accessed Thayer entry; the alternative reference to a man's strong passion and the betrothed-couple interpretation remain review questions. Let them marry is plural. [TH-HYP; TH-GAM]

Verse 7:37

Greek–English Translation

But the one who stands firm in his heart, having no necessity but having authority over his own will, and has decided this in his own heart, to keep his own virgin, will do well.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Keep his own virgin retains the source's compressed object without adding daughter or a vow. The absence of necessity and freedom of decision are both stated.

Verse 7:38

Greek–English Translation

So the one who gives his own virgin in marriage does well, and the one who does not give her in marriage will do better.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Gamizō is rendered give in marriage, distinct from gameō, marry, in 7:36. The accessed Thayer entry supports the causative sense; an alternative reading of the paragraph takes the verb as marrying one's betrothed. Better expresses Paul's comparative advice in the stated circumstances, not a declaration that marriage is sinful. [TH-GAM]

Verse 7:39

Greek–English Translation

A wife is bound for as long as her husband lives. But if her husband falls asleep, she is free to marry whomever she wishes, only in the Lord.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Falls asleep retains the death metaphor. The selected first clause has bound without an added by law.

Variant [SBL-1COR-APP 7:39]: The apparatus records by law as an RP addition after is bound.

Verse 7:40

Greek–English Translation

But she is happier if she remains as she is, according to my judgment; and I think that I too have God's Spirit.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Paul's judgment and his Spirit claim are both retained; neither is deleted to make the advice more or less authoritative.