What Does 2 Timothy 3:6 Mean?
For from these are those who slip into houses and lead captive little women heaped high with shortcomings, led on by many-colored cravings.
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
For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,THE KEY
Desire becomes a captor’s handle when someone already carries a heap of missing.
THE MEANING
The verse depicts deceivers entering private homes and taking vulnerable women captive by working on their varied desires. It speaks now wherever someone exploits people already burdened by missing and turns their longing into a means of control. Its phrase “silly women” is blunt and demeaning; that harshness remains in the text.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that captivity always begins with visible force: here it begins with covert access and proceeds through desire.
THE ROOT
αἰχμαλωτίζοντες
aichmalōtizontes
GROWS FROM
αἰχμαλωτ-
aichmalōt-
To take as a captive, to capture as a prisoner.
“lead captive” in this verse is aichmalōtizontes. This is capture, not mere persuasion. The neighboring phrase “led away” shows how desire can become the route through which that capture is carried out.
ALSO GROWS
aichmalōtos: A captive or prisoner.
αἰχμάλωτος
It names the condition produced by the action of taking someone captive.
aichmalōsia: Captivity.
αἰχμαλωσία
The action opens into a condition of captivity, rather than a passing influence.
ἁμαρτίαις
hamartiais
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτ-
hamart-
To miss or fail to reach.
“heaped high with shortcomings” in this verse is hamartiais. The word is plural: these are accumulated missings, not a single abstract label. The KJV’s “laden” also echoes σωρευμένα (sōreumena, heaped up), making the burden a picture of what has gathered over time.
ALSO GROWS
hamartanō: To miss, fail, or do wrong.
ἁμαρτάνω
It makes the root’s sense of missing visible as an action.
hamartōlos: A sinner; one marked by missing or wrongdoing.
ἁμαρτωλός
It shows the root extending from an act of missing to a person described by that pattern.
ἐπιθυμίαις
epithymiais
GROWS FROM
ἐπιθυμ-
epithym-
Desire or longing directed toward something.
“led on by many-colored cravings” in this verse is epithymiais. The word names desire itself; the phrase “divers lusts” makes those longings varied and plural. Here they become the channel by which the women are led captive.
ALSO GROWS
epithymeō: To desire or long for.
ἐπιθυμέω
It shows the same word family as a movement of longing.
epithymētēs: One who desires.
ἐπιθυμητής
It carries the same root from the longing itself to the person who longs.
THE PATTERN
Captivity can advance through desire when what entices a person becomes the handle by which another leads them.
With the multitude of her instruction she bends him; with the smoothings of her lips she pushes him.But each one is tested by his own craving, dragged out and lured.They promise freedom, while they themselves are servants of decay, for by whomever a person is overcome, to that one he is enslaved.THE THREAD
But each one is tested by his own craving, dragged out and lured.Both verses use ἐπιθυμία (epithymia, desire): James shows desire drawing a person away, while this verse shows people being led by many desires. The shared word reveals desire as a path that can lead into captivity.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us