Colossians 3:5
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Study Note
Study Note
The command to 'put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry' grounds radical mortification in the indicative of death and resurrection with Christ (3:1-4). The identification of covetousness (pleonexia) as idolatry draws on the prophetic tradition that equates the love of possessions with the worship of a false god (Ezekiel 14:3; Ephesians 5:5), and Jesus's teaching that one cannot serve God and money (Matthew 6:24). The verb 'put to death' (nekrōsate — an aorist imperative) suggests a decisive act, not a gradual process, consistent with the 'dying to sin' language of Romans 6. The verse establishes that union with the crucified Christ requires concrete mortification of specific vices, not merely a general orientation toward holiness.
Other Translations
Put to death therefore your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry;
Put to death, then, your members that <FI>are<Fi> upon the earth--whoredom, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and the covetousness, which is idolatry--
Then put to death your bodies which are of the earth; wrong use of the flesh, unclean things, passion, evil desires and envy, which is the worship of strange gods;
Cross References
Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall …
Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.