1 Corinthians 5:1-8

Paraphrase. 'A rumour has reached me that unchastity exists among you, and that one of your number has taken his stepmother as his wife, an act which the very heathen abhor. (2) How can you maintain your attitude of self-satisfaction in presence of this scandal? Why do you not rather humiliate yourselves and remove the sinner from your fellowship? (3) For I who am at a distance feel the disgrace as though I were among you, and have already decided what must be done, as if I were in your assembly. (4, 5) When you are gathered together, I being present with you in spirit, proceed to pass sentence of excommunication on this man, delivering him solemnly to Satan in the name of Jesus our Lord, that his soul may be saved even if his body perish. (6) How senseless is your self-conceit in presence of this impurity. Do ye not realise that you are all in danger of being degraded by it? (7) Put away this leaven of unholiness, then, and remain free from it. Remember how at the Passover all leaven was put away; and now that our Paschal Lamb Christ Jesus has been sacrificed, and our feast of unleavened bread begun, (8) let us celebrate our Passover by putting away the leaven of vice and sin and using only the unleavened bread of purity and truth.'