Colossians 3:5

Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — The author addresses the Colossian believers, placing this command between the promise of future glory with Christ and the warning that God’s wrath comes on the disobedient.

The words — The text commands Nekrōsate (do put to death) the ta melē (members) of your earthly nature, with oun (therefore) linking the directive to the preceding context.

The thread — This call to mortify sinful practices aligns with the warning in Romans 8:13 about living according to the flesh and the catalog of fleshly acts in Galatians 5:19.

Why it lands — The verse explicitly identifies sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed as components of earthly nature, stating that greed is idolatry and that these behaviors provoke God’s wrath.

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

Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:

Cross-references

Romans 8:13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Galatians 5:19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery;
Galatians 5:24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
1 Peter 2:11 Beloved, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from the desires of the flesh, which war against your soul.
Romans 6:13 Do not present the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and present the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness.
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,
Ephesians 5:3 But among you, as is proper among the saints, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed.
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.
Ephesians 4:19 Having lost all sense of shame, they have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity, with a craving for more.
Mark 7:21 For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,