What Does Hebrews 13:18 Mean?
Pray for us, for we trust that we have a good conscience, willing in all things to walk well.
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
Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly.THE KEY
A clear conscience does not cancel dependence: the speakers trust their integrity and still ask for prayer.
THE MEANING
You can name an honest conscience without treating it as proof that you need no help; the request for prayer sits right beside the confidence. The integrity described here reaches into “all things”: it is a present willingness to conduct yourself honorably, not a claim that every choice is beyond examination.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that asking for prayer admits you lack integrity: here the request comes from people who trust their conscience.
THE ROOT
συνείδησιν
syneidēsin
GROWS FROM
οἶδα (oida), built on εἴδω (eidō)
οἶδα (oida) means to know or perceive; εἴδω (eidō) means to see.
Συνείδησις (syneidēsis, conscience) is built from σύν (syn, with) and οἶδα (oida, know): a knowing-with, an awareness accompanying one’s own conduct. “Good conscience” therefore names an inner awareness tied to how one lives, not merely a favorable opinion of oneself.
ALSO GROWS
oida: know, perceive
οἶδα
This is the knowing element inside the Greek word for conscience.
synoida: be conscious with; share awareness
σύνοιδα
This related word carries the sense of awareness that accompanies one’s own actions.
πεποίθαμεν
pepoithamen
GROWS FROM
πείθω
peithō
To persuade or convince; in the form used here, to have become persuaded and so trust.
The speakers’ trust is a settled persuasion, not a claim that they know everything. It appears beside their request for prayer, so assurance and dependence coexist.
ALSO GROWS
peithō: persuade, convince
πείθω
The base verb shows that the confidence in this verse is grounded in persuasion.
pepoithēsis: confidence, assurance
πεποίθησις
This related noun names the confidence that grows from being persuaded.
THE PATTERN
Inner integrity becomes meaningful as a willingness to live honorably across the whole of life.
And God said to him in a dream, Yes, I perceive that you did this with an unbroken heart. I also held you back from missing the mark against me, and therefore I did not let you touch her.And in this I train myself, to always have a conscience that stumbles on nothing, toward God and toward humankind.For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in singleness and the sunlit clarity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the favor of God, we have walked in the world, and all the more overflowing toward you.THE THREAD
And in this I train myself, to always have a conscience that stumbles on nothing, toward God and toward humankind.Acts uses the same Greek word συνείδησις (syneidēsis, conscience) as Hebrews 13:18. It likewise pairs inner awareness with a continuing aim toward conduct before God and people, opening conscience as a lived orientation.
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