What Does 1 Corinthians 6:9 Mean?
Have you not seen that the unaligned will not inherit the governance of God? Do not wander. Neither the sellers of bodies, nor the image-servers, nor adulterers, nor the soft ones, nor those who lie in the beds of males.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,THE KEY
The verse reveals God’s reign as a share in a just order, incompatible with the injustice it names.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks now as a direct warning: the unrighteous and the people named in its list do not inherit God’s kingdom. “Be not deceived” centers the danger of imagining that those named acts can coexist with participation in God’s reign.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that someone can presume a share in God’s kingdom while remaining committed to injustice and the acts named here.
THE ROOT
βασιλεία
basileia
GROWS FROM
βασιλ-
basil-
Royal authority, reign, or rule.
“governance of God” in this verse is basileia. Βασιλεία (basileia) can name kingship and the act of reigning, so “kingdom” opens onto God’s governance, not only a place. Inheritance here means receiving a share in that rule.
ALSO GROWS
basileus: King, sovereign.
βασιλεύς
The king is the source of the authority the kingdom expresses.
basileuō: To reign, rule.
βασιλεύω
This verb makes the kingdom’s active dimension explicit: it is governance in motion.
ἄδικοι
adikoi
GROWS FROM
δικ-
dik-
Justice, rightness, or what accords with what is right.
“unaligned” in this verse is adikoi. The word is formed with a negating prefix: ἄδικοι (adikoi) are those characterized by what is unjust or out of right order. Its shared root with words for justice and alignment makes the verse’s boundary about the shape of conduct, not a label detached from it.
ALSO GROWS
dikaiosynē: Alignment, righteousness.
δικαιοσύνη
This branch names the right order that ἄδικοι (adikoi) lack.
adikia: Injustice, wrongdoing.
ἀδικία
This branch makes the negative force of the word plain: a life turned away from justice.
κληρονομήσουσιν
klēronomēsousin
GROWS FROM
κληρονομ-
klēronom-
To receive or possess an allotted share.
“will not inherit” in this verse is klēronomēsousin. The verb frames participation as receiving an inheritance, a real share in what belongs to God’s reign. Beside βασιλεία (basileia), it presents the kingdom as governance one can inherit a share in.
ALSO GROWS
klēros: Lot, allotted share.
κλῆρος
This branch supplies the image of a portion assigned to someone.
klēronomia: Inheritance, inherited share.
κληρονομία
This noun makes explicit the inheritance language carried by the verb in the verse.
THE PATTERN
God’s reign has a moral shape: what a life does matters to participation in it.
Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the governance of the heavens, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in the heavens.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.He who walks whole, works alignment, and speaks truth in his heart.THE THREAD
envyings, killings, drunkenness, wild processions, and things like these, of which I tell you beforehand, as I also told you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the governance of God.This verse uses the same Greek verb, κληρονομήσουσιν (klēronomēsousin, “will inherit”), and the same phrase “kingdom of God.” That repeated wording links inheritance to participation in God’s governance and makes conduct part of the question of who receives that share.
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