What Does Romans 13:13 Mean in the King James?

Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.

Romans 13:13 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The day gives the walk its shape: what belongs to this life can stand in the light.

THE MEANING

Your life is pictured as a walk already in the day, visible in its direction and habits. The verse names excess, drunkenness, sexual disorder, quarrelling, and envy as ways of living that do not fit that daylight. It describes a coherence between where you stand and how you move.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that private excess and public integrity can be kept in separate compartments: the verse presents them as competing ways of walking.

THE ROOT

περιπατέω

peripateō

GROWS FROM

πατέω

patéō

to tread, to step

The English “walk” can sound like a soft metaphor, but ⁨περιπατέω⁩ (peripateō, walk about or conduct oneself) keeps conduct in the language of movement, built from ⁨πατέω⁩ (patéō, tread). The verse’s list describes competing paths through daily life, not detached faults.

ALSO GROWS

katapateō: to tread down, trample

καταπατέω

This compound keeps the root’s literal stepping force visible beneath its figurative use for a course of conduct.

peripateō: to walk about, conduct oneself

περιπατέω

This is the verse’s word: a repeated movement that names the shape of a life.

εὐσχημόνως

euschēmonōs

GROWS FROM

σχῆμα

schēma

form, shape, outward appearance

“honestly” in this verse is euschēmonōs. Alongside the familiar sense of honesty, this word carries the sense of seemly, fitting conduct. The ⁨σχῆμα⁩ (schēma, form or outward shape) family brings the image of a life whose visible form belongs in daylight.

ALSO GROWS

euschēmōn: well-formed, seemly

εὐσχήμων

This related form points toward conduct that is fitting in its visible shape.

schēmatizō: to form, fashion

σχηματίζω

This verb shows the root’s concern with the form something takes, echoing the verse’s picture of a life made visible in the day.

THE PATTERN

A life aligned with the light becomes a visible path whose deeds and direction come into view.

But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

Proverbs 4:18 · KJVThe path itself grows brighter as it moves toward day, so conduct unfolds as a direction.

But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

John 3:21 · KJVThe deeds come into the light and become visible as part of the life being described.

Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

1 Thessalonians 5:5 · KJVThe verse names the reader as a child of day, making daylight an identity that shapes the walk.

THE THREAD

For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

Ephesians 5:8 · KJV

This verse uses the same verb, ⁨περιπατέω⁩ (peripateō, walk or conduct oneself), so both passages describe a way of life as a walk. Ephesians names the light that shapes this walk; Romans shows which ways of living do not fit it.

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