Bible Strands
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.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Paul addresses the Ephesian believers to contrast their former pagan existence with their renewed identity in Christ. The verse describes the moral trajectory of those who have abandoned God's truth.
The words — ἀπηλγηκότες (apēlgēkotes) denotes having lost feeling or become callous, while παρέδωκαν (paredōkan) indicates they actively gave themselves over. These terms describe a deliberate surrender to unchecked behavior.
The thread — The progression of moral decline appears in Romans 1:24, where God hands people over to impurity, and Colossians 3:5, which commands believers to put this nature to death.
Why it lands — The text states that ethical decay begins with hardened indifference and continues through voluntary indulgence. Readers must identify this pattern in themselves and reject it as incompatible with the life taught by Christ.
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
Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
Cross-references
- Romans 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another.
- Colossians 3:5 Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.
- 1 Timothy 4:2 influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.
- Jude 1:11 Woe to them! They have traveled the path of Cain; they have rushed for profit into the error of Balaam; they have perished in Korah’s rebellion.
- 1 Peter 4:3 For you have spent enough time in the past carrying out the same desires as the Gentiles: living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry.
- 2 Peter 2:12 These men are like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be captured and destroyed. They blaspheme in matters they do not understand, and like such creatures, they too will be destroyed.
- Revelation 18:3 All the nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her immorality. The kings of the earth were immoral with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown wealthy from the extravagance of her luxury.”
- Isaiah 56:11 Like ravenous dogs, they are never satisfied. They are shepherds with no discernment; they all turn to their own way, each one seeking his own gain:
- Ephesians 4:17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.
- 2 Peter 2:22 Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.”