1st Corinthians Chapter 5 verse 6 Holy Bible
Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
read chapter 5 in ASV
This pride of yours is not good. Do you not see that a little leaven makes a change in all the mass?
read chapter 5 in BBE
Your boasting [is] not good. Do ye not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
read chapter 5 in DARBY
Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
read chapter 5 in KJV
read chapter 5 in WBT
Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump?
read chapter 5 in WEB
Not good `is' your glorying; have ye not known that a little leaven the whole lump doth leaven?
read chapter 5 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 6. - Your glorying; rather, the subject of your boasting, the point on which you glorify yourselves. The Greek word does not mean the act of boasting, but the thing of which we boast. Not good. The Greek word is not agathon, but kalon, an almost untranslatable word, which implies all moral beauty, and resembles the English word "fair" or "noble." When he says that it is "not good," he uses the figure called litotes; i.e. he employs an expression intentionally too weak, that it may be corrected into a stronger one by the involuntary indignation of the reader; as when Virgil calls the cannibal tyrant Busiris "unpraised." Hence the clause is equivalent to "the thing of which you are boasting is detestable." Know ye not. This clause is used by St. Paul in specially solemn appeals, and almost exclusively in these Epistles (1 Corinthians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 6:16, 19; 1 Corinthians 9:13, 24). A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump (Galatians 5:9). The taint alluded to is not only the presence of the unpunished offender, but the general laxity and impurity displayed by their whole bearing in the matter (comp. the line of Menander quoted in ch. 15:33, and the "root of bitterness" in Hebrews 12:15). (For the word "lump," see Romans 11:16.)
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(6) Your glorying is not good.--There is possibly a reference here to some boasting regarding their spiritual state contained in the letter which had reached St. Paul from Corinth, and to which part of this Epistle is a reply. (See 1Corinthians 7:1.) So long as there is that one bad person amongst you it gives a bad character to the whole community, as leaven, though it may not have pervaded the entire lump, still makes it not the unleavened bread which was necessary for the Paschal Feast. This Epistle being written shortly before Pentecost (1Corinthians 16:8), it was very likely some time about or soon after Easter, hence the leaven and the Paschal Feast naturally suggest themselves as illustrations. The Apostle passes on rapidly from the mention of the leaven to the whole scene of the feast. As with the most minute and scrupulous care the Jew would remove every atom of leaven when the Paschal lamb was to be eaten, so our Paschal Lamb having been slain, we must take care that no moral leaven remains in the sacred household of the Church while she keeps her perpetual feast of prayer and thanksgiving.
