2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

◄ 2 Corinthians 6:14 ►

Parallel Verses

New International Version
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

English Standard Version
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

New American Standard Bible
Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?

King James Bible
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?

International Standard Version
Stop becoming unevenly yoked with unbelievers. What partnership can righteousness have with lawlessness? What fellowship can light have with darkness?

American Standard Version
Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers: for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? or what communion hath light with darkness?

Douay-Rheims Bible
Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. For what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness?

Darby Bible Translation
Be not diversely yoked with unbelievers; for what participation is there between righteousness and lawlessness? or what fellowship of light with darkness?

Young's Literal Translation
Become not yoked with others -- unbelievers, for what partaking is there to righteousness and lawlessness?

Cross References

Genesis 24:3
And I will make you swear by the LORD, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that you shall not take a wife to my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell:

Deuteronomy 22:10
You shall not plow with an ox and an ass together.

Ezra 9:2
For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yes, the hand of the princes and rulers has been chief in this trespass.

1 Corinthians 5:9
I wrote to you in an letter not to company with fornicators:

1 Corinthians 6:6
But brother goes to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers.

1 Corinthians 7:39
The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.

Ephesians 5:7
Be not you therefore partakers with them.

Ephesians 5:11
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

1 John 1:6
If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:

Jump to Previous

Asses Bound Close Common Communion Company Dark Darkness Evil Faith Fellowship Iniquity Light Others Oxen Partaking Partnership Righteousness Together Unbelievers Unrighteousness Wickedness Yoked

Jump to Next

Asses Bound Close Common Communion Company Dark Darkness Evil Faith Fellowship Iniquity Light Others Oxen Partaking Partnership Righteousness Together Unbelievers Unrighteousness Wickedness Yoked

Commentaries

Matthew Henry's Commentary

6:11-18 It is wrong for believers to join with the wicked and profane. The word unbeliever applies to all destitute of true faith. True pastors will caution their beloved children in the gospel, not to be unequally yoked. The fatal effects of neglecting Scripture precepts as to marriages clearly appear. Instead of a help meet, the union brings a snare. Those whose cross it is to be unequally united, without their wilful fault, may expect consolation under it; but when believers enter into such unions, against the express warnings of God's word, they must expect must distress. The caution also extends to common conversation. We should not join in friendship and acquaintance with wicked men and unbelievers. Though we cannot wholly avoid seeing and hearing, and being with such, yet we should never choose them for friends. We must not defile ourselves by converse with those who defile themselves with sin. Come out from the workers of iniquity, and separate from their vain and sinful pleasures and pursuits; from all conformity to the corruptions of this present evil world. If it be an envied privilege to be the son or daughter of an earthly prince, who can express the dignity and happiness of being sons and daughters of the Almighty?

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown

14. Be not—Greek, "Become not."

unequally yoked—"yoked with one alien in spirit." The image is from the symbolical precept of the law (Le 19:19), "Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind"; or the precept (De 22:10), "Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass together." Compare De 7:3, forbidding marriages with the heathen; also 1Co 7:39. The believer and unbeliever are utterly heterogeneous. Too close intercourse with unbelievers in other relations also is included (2Co 6:16; 1Co 8:10; 10:14).

fellowship—literally, "share," or "participation."

righteousness—the state of the believer, justified by faith.

unrighteousness—rather, as always translated elsewhere, "iniquity"; the state of the unbeliever, the fruit of unbelief.

light—of which believers are the children (1Th 5:5).