διαστρέφω
to pervert
‘to pervert’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Tense
- Perfect
- A completed past action with continuing present results.
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective aspect).
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
Voice
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
Mood
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Neuter
- Grammatically neuter.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Every verse where G1294 appears in the Book of Matthew — 1 distinct verse. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Greek form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Greek New Testament; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences of this word are not indexed here.
Matthew
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
“to pervert” is the headline sense of the Greek verb διαστρεφω (diastréphō). First canonically at Matthew 17:17, it enters the text early. The Greek New Testament uses it across 7 verses — uncommon. More than a third of its appearances fall in Acts. Catalogued under 2 senses, its meaning is not single-sense. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G1294 catalogs a Greek word from the Greek New Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Greek New Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 7
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 7 distinct verses.
- 4 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 4 of 27 New Testament books.
- #1,358
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 1,358 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 7 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the New Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Some books belong to more than one corpus (Luke is in both the Gospels and the Lukan corpus, and so on), so these shares overlap and need not total 100%. Each figure is a share of the word’s 7 distinct verses.
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 5 verses · 71%
- Gospels 3 verses · 43%
- Pauline corpus 1 verse · 14%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Perverse 3×
- American Standard Version: Perverse 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Perverse 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Perverted 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G1294 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G1294 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G1294 across 7 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G1294 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in Thayer's
The 2 senses Thayer's distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- to oppose, plot against the saving purposes and plans of God
- to turn aside from the right path, to pervert, corrupt
Word origin
Derived from δια (diá) (G1223) — through.
Forms in the corpus
The 6 distinct written forms G1294 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| διεστραμμένη diestramménē | Verb, Perfect, Passive, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Feminine | Matthew 17:17 | 2 |
| διαστρέφοντα diastréphonta | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Masculine | Luke 23:2 | 1 |
| διαστρέφων diastréphōn | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Acts 13:10 | 1 |
| διαστρέψαι diastrépsai | Verb, Aorist, Active, Infinitive | Acts 13:8 | 1 |
| διεστραμμένα diestramména | Verb, Perfect, Passive, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Neuter | Acts 20:30 | 1 |
| διεστραμμένης diestramménēs | Verb, Perfect, Passive, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Feminine | Philippians 2:15 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G1294, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
- διαβαινω diabaínō G1224 to pass through
- διαβαλλω diabállō G1225 to slander
- διαβεβαιοομαι diabebaióomai G1226 to affirm strongly
- διαβλεπω diablépō G1227 to look through
- διαγγελλω diangéllō G1229 to proclaim
- διαγινομαι diagínomai G1230 to continue
- διαγινωσκω diaginṓskō G1231 to ascertain
- διαγογγυζω diagongýzō G1234 to murmur
- διαγρηγορεω diagrēgoréō G1235 to watch through
- διαγω diágō G1236 to lead through
- διαδεχομαι diadéchomai G1237 to receive in succession
- διαδημα diádēma G1238 diadem
- διαδιδωμι diadídōmi G1239 to distribute
- διαζωννυμι diazṓnnymi G1241 to gird around
- διαιρεω diairéō G1244 to divide
- διακαθαριζω diakatharízō G1245 to cleanse thoroughly
- διακατελεγχομαι diakatelénchomai G1246 to confute
- διακουομαι diakoúomai G1251 to hear fully
- διακρινω diakrínō G1252 to distinguish
- διακωλυω diakōlýō G1254 to hinder
- διαλαλεω dialaléō G1255 to converse
- διαλεγομαι dialégomai G1256 to discuss
- διαλειπω dialeípō G1257 to intermit
- διαλλασσω diallássō G1259 to reconcile
+62 more words share this root (not shown).
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 88 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word διαστρεφω appears 28 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 25 verses in 13 books.
- 28
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 25
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 13 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 13 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Exodus 5:4 διαστρέφω
- Numbers 15:39 διαστρέφω
- Deuteronomy 32:5 διαστρέφω
- Judges 5:6 διαστρέφω
- 1 Kings 18:17 διαστρέφω
- Job 37:12 διαστρέφω
- Psalms 17:27 διαστρέφω
- Proverbs 4:27 διαστρέφω
- Ecclesiastes 1:15 διαστρέφω
- Isaiah 59:8 διαστρέφω
- Ezekiel 13:18 διαστρέφω
- Micah 3:9 διαστρέφω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G1294) appears in the Greek Septuagint. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Exodus 5:4 διαστρέφω The king of Egypt said to them, "Why do you, Moses and Aaron, take the people from their work? Get back to your burdens!"
- Exodus 23:6 διαστρέφω "You shall not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.
- Numbers 15:39 διαστρέφω and it shall be to you for a fringe, that you may look on it, and remember all the commandments of Yahweh, and do them; and that you not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you use to play the prostitute;
- Numbers 32:7 διαστρέφω Why discourage you the heart of the children of Israel from going over into the land which Yahweh has given them?
- Deuteronomy 32:5 διαστρέφω They have dealt corruptly with him, [they are] not his children, [it is] their blemish; [They are] a perverse and crooked generation.
- Judges 5:6 διαστρέφω In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, In the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, The travelers walked through byways.
- 1 Kings 18:17 διαστρέφω It happened, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him, Is it you, you troubler of Israel?
- 1 Kings 18:18 διαστρέφω He answered, I have not troubled Israel; but you, and your father's house, in that you have forsaken the commandments of Yahweh, and you have followed the Baals.
- Job 37:12 διαστρέφω It is turned round about by his guidance, That they may do whatever he commands them On the surface of the habitable world,
- Psalms 17:27 διαστρέφω
- Proverbs 4:27 διαστρέφω Don't turn to the right hand nor to the left. Remove your foot from evil.
- Proverbs 6:14 διαστρέφω In whose heart is perverseness, Who devises evil continually, Who always sows discord.
- Proverbs 8:13 διαστρέφω The fear of Yahweh is to hate evil. I hate pride, arrogance, the evil way, and the perverse mouth.
- Proverbs 10:9 διαστρέφω He who walks blamelessly walks surely, But he who perverts his ways will be found out.
- Proverbs 11:20 διαστρέφω Those who are perverse in heart are an abomination to Yahweh, But those whose ways are blameless are his delight.
- Proverbs 16:26 διαστρέφω The appetite of the laboring man labors for him; For his mouth urges him on.
- Ecclesiastes 1:15 διαστρέφω That which is crooked can't be made straight; and that which is lacking can't be counted.
- Ecclesiastes 7:13 διαστρέφω Consider the work of God, for who can make that straight, which he has made crooked?
- Ecclesiastes 12:3 διαστρέφω In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, And the strong men shall bow themselves, And the grinders cease because they are few, And those who look out of the windows are darkened,
- Isaiah 59:8 διαστρέφω The way of peace they don't know; and there is no justice in their goings: they have made them crooked paths; whoever goes therein does not know peace.
- Ezekiel 13:18 διαστρέφω and say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Woe to the women who sew pillows on all elbows, and make kerchiefs for the head of [persons of] every stature to hunt souls! Will you hunt the souls of my people, and save souls alive for yourselves?
- Ezekiel 13:22 διαστρέφω Because with lies you have grieved the heart of the righteous, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, and be saved alive:
- Ezekiel 16:34 διαστρέφω You are different from [other] women in your prostitution, in that none follows you to play the prostitute; and whereas you give hire, and no hire is given to you, therefore you are different.
- Micah 3:9 διαστρέφω Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, And rulers of the house of Israel, Who abhor justice, And pervert all equity.
- Habakkuk 1:4 διαστρέφω Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G1294) in the Septuagint — not a translation of any one Hebrew word. The store carries no word-level Hebrew↔Greek alignment, so no Hebrew original is asserted here. Counts come from the recovered LXX Strong's tagging — high-frequency vocabulary is well covered, while rare or late forms may be untagged — so they reflect tagged occurrences and may slightly undercount.
