Bible Strands
1 Corinthians 10:8
We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Paul addresses the Corinthian believers, using the wilderness generation of Israel as a historical warning. He places this instruction within a sequential series of exhortations drawn from Israel’s corporate failures in the desert.
The words — The verb πορνεύσωμεν (porneuōmen) carries the literal sense "we should commit sexual immorality," directly linked to the aorist ἐπόρνευσαν (eporneusan) meaning "they committed sexual immorality." The particle μηδὲ (mēde) functions as a prohibitive "neither" or "do not," extending the negative command.
The thread — The incident references Numbers 25:1, where Israel engaged in sexual immorality with Moabite women and faced a plague, and aligns with the plague motif in Psalm 106:29. Paul explicitly connects this pattern to his later command in 1 Corinthians 6:18 to flee sexual sin.
Why it lands — The text demands immediate cessation from sexual immorality by citing the sudden death of twenty-three thousand Israelites as the direct consequence. It requires readers to treat the warning as a factual boundary rather than a theoretical possibility.
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 let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
Cross-references
- Numbers 25:1 While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab,
- 1 Corinthians 6:18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a man can commit is outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
- Psalms 106:29 So they provoked the LORD to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them.
- 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,
- Revelation 2:14 But I have a few things against you, because some of you hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to place a stumbling block before the Israelites so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality.