Bible Strands
1 Corinthians 10:7
Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Paul writes to the Corinthian church, using Israel’s wilderness history as a direct warning against repeating their spiritual failures.
The words — εἰδωλολάτραι (eidōlolatrai) literally means idolaters, and γέγραπται (gegraptai) means it has been written, grounding the command in prior Scripture.
The thread — The warning traces to Exodus 32:6, Psalm 106:19, and Deuteronomy 9:12, all recording Israel’s covenant breach through calf worship and subsequent revelry.
Why it lands — The text commands readers to reject idolatry by refusing the pattern of eating, drinking, and revelry that followed Israel’s false worship.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
Cross-references
- Exodus 32:6 So the next day they arose, offered burnt offerings, and presented peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
- Psalms 106:19 At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped a molten image.
- Deuteronomy 9:12 And the LORD said to me, “Get up and go down from here at once, for your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten image.”
- 1 Corinthians 6:9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts,
- 1 Corinthians 10:14 Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.
- Deuteronomy 9:16 And I saw how you had sinned against the LORD your God; you had made for yourselves a molten calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the LORD had commanded you.
- 1 Corinthians 5:11 But now I am writing you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a verbal abuser, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
- Exodus 32:17 When Joshua heard the sound of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “The sound of war is in the camp.”
- Exodus 32:19 As Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, he burned with anger and threw the tablets out of his hands, shattering them at the base of the mountain.
- 1 John 5:21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.