2 Corinthians 6:14
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
Study Note
Study Note
The injunction 'be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers' employs the agricultural image of mismatched draft animals (Deuteronomy 22:10 forbids yoking ox and donkey together) to describe incompatible covenantal alignments. The five rhetorical antitheses that follow — righteousness/unrighteousness, light/darkness, Christ/Belial, believer/infidel, temple of God/idols — reflect a dualistic ethical framework whose closest parallels are in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Community Rule's 'Two Spirits'), suggesting Paul drew on sectarian Jewish purity discourse. The passage concludes with a catena of Old Testament quotations (Leviticus 26:12; Isaiah 52:11; 2 Samuel 7:14; Isaiah 43:6) creating a scriptural mosaic that embeds the Corinthian community within Israel's covenant identity. The verse has been applied historically to marriage, business partnerships, and ecumenical relationships with varying results.
Other Translations
Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers: for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? or what communion hath light with darkness?
Become not yoked with others--unbelievers, for what partaking <FI>is there<Fi> to righteousness and lawlessness?
Do not keep company with those who have not faith: for what is there in common between righteousness and evil, or between light and dark?
Cross References
But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for …
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of …
That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but …
Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, …
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth …
We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his …
Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his …
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and …
This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and …