What Does Romans 13:13 Mean?

Let us walk with good bearing, as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in bedding and unbridled acts, not in strife and boiling.

Romans 13:13 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

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

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

“with good bearing” 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 aligned is like gleaming light, walking and shining until the day stands firm.

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

But the one who does the truth comes to the light, so that their deeds may be made visible, for they have been worked in God.

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

For all of you are children of light and children of the day; we are not of night, nor of darkness.

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

THE THREAD

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.

Ephesians 5:8 · SDV

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.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us