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Hey everybody, Pastor Steven Anderson here from Faith Ward Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona to talk to you about Hebrews chapter 13 verse 4 which in the King James Bible reads marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. One of the modern versions, this verse has been changed and it reads completely differently. Let me read it for you from the ESV and the NIV. The ESV says Let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled For God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Here it is and the NIV pretty much says the same thing marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept pure For God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. So which one's right? Well, we're gonna look at the original Greek here. I'm gonna prove to you that the King James is right And there's a big difference in meaning between these two things. Okay, and I'm gonna explain that as well But in this case, there is no textual variant in the Greek text So sometimes the modern versions are saying something totally different because they're translating from a corrupt Greek manuscript in this case both the King James and the ESV are Translating from the same Greek original and we're gonna go through this word by word Let me just start out by explaining to you what the difference is because in the King James it's saying marriage is honorable The bed is undefiled But whoremongers and adulterous God will judge basically what it's saying is that the activity between husband and wife In bed is a good thing. It's honorable. It's undefiled It's pure that act between a man and his wife is a pure act within marriage Outside of marriage. It's wicked outside of marriage. It's something that God will bring his judgment down upon Fornication is happening outside of marriage adultery. That's without the bounds of marriage So that's what the King James is teaching now when you read this in the modern versions of well We need to keep the marriage bed Undefiled that makes it sound like there's something that you do within the marriage bed that that could be impure or something something wrong with it, you know, there are a lot of Christians quote-unquote who have some perverted views on the bedroom You know starting with the Catholics who basically teach that Having intercourse with your own wife is is you know venial sin because you know It's only for procreation or you know You're not supposed to enjoy it or whatever and and I'm sure you've heard about all the different weirdo teachings throughout the centuries coming from Catholics on that issue and That's why they think that it's so much better to be celibate and everything else Because they're basically having a corrupt view of the marriage bed not what the Bible teaches Bible consistently teaches it within marriage It's a good thing. Okay and then basically Other groups out there have similar views trying to say that it's only for procreation Or you know, it's better to abstain I mean there are all kinds of strange teachings out there and and when you have this verse and the NIV in the ESV It's it's it's feeding into that as opposed to the King James telling you. Hey, look within marriage go for it You know go for broke you're married So anyway, let's look at this in the original. Let's see which one's right. Okay, so here we I'm gonna go through this Word-by-word first. I'll just read the whole thing. Timioso gamos en pasi que kitty a me andos pornos de que mi jus crinio fail so Timios honorable Olamos marriage or literally the marriage, but it's just honorable marriage in all and posse and que He kitty the bed. This is where we get the word coitus in English ekiti the bed a me andos Undefiled and then we have our punctuation mark here. It's just a colon leading into For news that so the word bad means but but it comes second in the phrase so it would be translated but fornicators for news that fornicators and me who's adulterers Will judge creamy future tense Othello's God so God will judge fornicators and Adulterers and there's your butt coordinating conjunction. So what's the first part? Timios o gamos honorable marriage in all and The bed undefiled. Okay now In this case, we do not have The state of being verb here that we have in the King James where it would say marriage is honorable So basically if we're taking the King James We're basically adding an is here because in English we need a verb for an Independent clause like this. Okay, whereas in Greek and Hebrew you don't need it So often when you're reading in Hebrew and Greek the state of being verb isn't gonna be there So it has to be supplied like well, here's let me give you another example of this What about in John chapter 4 when it says God is a spirit. Okay, here's what that would look like in Greek Okay Okay, that's ma Othello's spirit God So that's all you in the original. You just have spirit God and and basically in order for this to make Sense in English you have to add the is and say, you know, God is a spirit God is a spirit. Okay Nevema Othello's would be the original. So here we have marriage is Honorable in all and the bed undefiled So the King James is translating this word for word Just supplying the is here just like you'd supply the is here just like you are frequently doing Literally thousands of times when you're translating, you know The Hebrew Bible the Greek New Testament Whatever because you're gonna run into this constantly where you have to supply the state of being verb that isn't used in the original languages Okay, so what's what's the ESV doing though? Okay, the ESV. Let me grab the ESV is saying Let marriage be held in honor among all so where is this idea of Holding marriage in honor. What we have is just honorable marriage Bob was just saying honorable equals marriage, but they've added this concept of Be held let it be held that that whole let it be mood there's no verb here with that mood of Say a subjunctive or optative mood here. Where is it? It isn't there Okay, they've added that into the text this let it be attitude it isn't there There's no let it be in the original Let it be held in honor held isn't there Let the marriage bed be undefiled. There's no let it be here. It just says ikiti amiandos Where's the let it be? Where's the subjunctive or optative mood? It isn't there The NIV again says Marriage should be honored by where's the should here. There is no should there's no idea of should in this verse they are just inserting that reading that into it because they have weird views on marriage and the marriage bed kept pure Okay, and again, there's no keep it pure. There's no it should be kept Where's kept where's held where's let it be. Where's should these are all just being at So the King James adds and is because you have to have an is in order for this to make sense in English They're just putting in a state of being Adding anything radical. They're just making it coherent in English But the ESV and the NIV are making all these radical changes should let it be Kept held it's it's adding all these elements that aren't in the original So, you know the King James is giving you an accurate translation and this like I said this matters because you know The King James is giving us a powerful verse telling us that the marriage beds undefiled, you know Giving us a green light in the bedroom as married couples to enjoy that union And you know what? It's not just for procreation Guess what? There are all kinds of scriptures Proverbs chapter 5 the book of Song of Solomon that rejoice in and laud The virtues of that relationship the joy and the pleasure that's found in the marital relationship. It's perverts who have this weird view of You know, they're gonna go beat themselves or something because they desired their wife, you know these bunch of Catholic monks or whoever so You know the plain reading of the text is exactly what the King James says god bless you have a great day