πορνεία
sexual immorality
‘sexual immorality’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Genitive-case word in the Greek New Testament →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Case
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Genitive, Singular, Feminine 11 times (44%)
- Noun, Dative, Singular, Feminine 4 times (16%)
- Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine 4 times (16%)
- Noun, Accusative, Singular, Feminine 3 times (12%)
- Noun, Nominative, Plural, Feminine 2 times (8%)
- Noun, Accusative, Plural, Feminine 1 time (4%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 25 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G4202 appears — 24 distinct verses across 11 books. 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 3 verses
- Matthew 5:32 πορνείας n gen sg fem but I tell you that whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries her when she is put away commits adultery.
- Matthew 15:19 πορνεῖαι n nom pl fem For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimony, and blasphemies.
- Matthew 19:9 πορνείᾳ n dat sg fem I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery."
Mark 1 verse
John 1 verse
Acts 3 verses
- Acts 15:20 πορνείας n gen sg fem but that we write to them that they abstain from the pollution of idols, from sexual immorality, from what is strangled, and from blood.
- Acts 15:29 πορνείας n gen sg fem that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality, from which if you keep yourselves, it will be well with you. Farewell."
- Acts 21:25 πορνείαν n acc sg fem But concerning the Gentiles who believe, we have written our decision that they should observe no such thing, except that they should keep themselves from food offered to idols, from blood, from strangled things, and from sexual immorality."
1 Corinthians 4 verses
- 1 Corinthians 5:1 πορνεία πορνεία n nom sg fem n nom sg fem It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father's wife.
- 1 Corinthians 6:13 πορνείᾳ n dat sg fem "Foods for the belly, and the belly for foods," but God will bring to nothing both it and them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.
- 1 Corinthians 6:18 πορνείαν n acc sg fem Flee sexual immorality! "Every sin that a man does is outside the body," but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
- 1 Corinthians 7:2 πορνείας n acc pl fem But, because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.
2 Corinthians 1 verse
Galatians 1 verse
Ephesians 1 verse
Colossians 1 verse
1 Thessalonians 1 verse
Revelation 7 verses
- Revelation 2:21 πορνείας n gen sg fem I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.
- Revelation 9:21 πορνείας n gen sg fem They didn't repent of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their sexual immorality, nor of their thefts.
- Revelation 14:8 πορνείας n gen sg fem Another, a second angel, followed, saying, "Babylon the great has fallen, which has made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her sexual immorality."
- Revelation 17:2 πορνείας n gen sg fem with whom the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality, and those who dwell in the earth were made drunken with the wine of her sexual immorality."
- Revelation 17:4 πορνείας n gen sg fem The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of the sexual immorality of the earth.
- Revelation 18:3 πορνείας n gen sg fem For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her sexual immorality, the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from the abundance of her luxury."
- Revelation 19:2 πορνείᾳ n dat sg fem for true and righteous are his judgments. For he has judged the great prostitute, who corrupted the earth with her sexual immorality, and he has avenged the blood of his servants at her hand."
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.
πορνεια (porneía) is a Greek noun most often rendered “sexual immorality.” The King James Version usually renders it “fornication,” while modern versions prefer “sexual immorality” (Berean Standard Bible) — see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 24 verses in 11 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Greek New Testament. Revelation dominates its distribution — 7 of 24 verses. Ranging over 2 senses, it is not a single-sense word. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G4202 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 →
- 24
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 24 distinct verses.
- 11 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 11 of 27 New Testament books.
- #530
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 530 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 24 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Revelation 7 verses 29%
- 1 Corinthians 4 verses 17%
- Matthew 3 verses 13%
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 24 distinct verses.
- Pauline corpus 9 verses · 38%
- Johannine 8 verses · 33%
- Revelation 7 verses · 29%
- Gospels 5 verses · 21%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 3 verses · 13%
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: Fornication 22×, Fornications 2×
- American Standard Version: Fornication 22×, Fornications 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Sexual immorality 18×, Immorality 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Sexual immorality 18×, Immorality 4×, Of 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4202 across 26 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 G4202 across 25 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G4202 across 23 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G4202 across 28 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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.
- illicit sexual intercourse
- metaph. the worship of idols
Word origin
Derived from πορνευω (porneúō) (G4203) — to commit immorality.
From G4203 ; harlotry (including adultery and incest ); figuratively idolatry : - fornication.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 6 distinct written forms G4202 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| πορνείας porneías | Noun, Genitive, Singular, Feminine | Matthew 5:32 | 12 |
| πορνείᾳ porneía | Noun, Dative, Singular, Feminine | Matthew 19:9 | 4 |
| πορνεία porneía | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine | 1 Corinthians 5:1 | 3 |
| πορνείαν porneían | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Feminine | Acts 21:25 | 3 |
| πορνεῖαι porneîai | Noun, Nominative, Plural, Feminine | Matthew 15:19 | 2 |
| Πορνεία Porneía | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine | Ephesians 5:3 | 1 |
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word πορνεια appears 43 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 37 verses in 9 books.
- 43
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 37
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 9 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 9 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 38:24 πορνεία
- Numbers 14:33 πορνεία
- 2 Kings 9:22 πορνεία
- Isaiah 47:10 πορνεία
- Jeremiah 2:20 πορνεία
- Ezekiel 16:15 πορνεία
- Hosea 1:2 πορνεία
- Micah 1:7 πορνεία
- Nahum 3:4 πορνεία
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4202) 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.
- Genesis 38:24 πορνεία It happened about three months later, that it was told Judah, saying, "Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has played the prostitute; and moreover, behold, she is with child by prostitution." Judah said, "Bring her forth, and let her be burnt."
- Numbers 14:33 πορνεία Your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your prostitution, until your dead bodies be consumed in the wilderness.
- 2 Kings 9:22 πορνεία It happened, when Joram saw Jehu, that he said, Is it peace, Jehu? He answered, What peace, so long as the prostitution of your mother Jezebel and her witchcraft abound?
- Isaiah 47:10 πορνεία For you have trusted in your wickedness; you have said, None sees me; your wisdom and your knowledge, it has perverted you, and you have said in your heart, I am, and there is none else besides me.
- Isaiah 57:9 πορνεία You went to the king with oil, and did increase your perfumes, and did send your ambassadors far off, and did debase yourself even to Sheol.
- Jeremiah 2:20 πορνεία For of old time I have broken your yoke, and burst your bonds; and you said, I will not serve; for on every high hill and under every green tree you did bow yourself, playing the prostitute.
- Jeremiah 3:2 πορνεία Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see; where have you not been lain with? By the ways have you sat for them, as an Arabian in the wilderness; and you have polluted the land with your prostitution and with your wickedness.
- Jeremiah 3:9 πορνεία It happened through the lightness of her prostitution, that the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
- Jeremiah 13:27 πορνεία I have seen your abominations, even your adulteries, and your neighing, the lewdness of your prostitution, on the hills in the field. Woe to you, Jerusalem! you will not be made clean; how long shall it yet be?
- Ezekiel 16:15 πορνεία But you did trust in your beauty, and played the prostitute because of your renown, and poured out your prostitution on everyone who passed by; his it was.
- Ezekiel 16:22 πορνεία In all your abominations and your prostitution you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, and was weltering in your blood.
- Ezekiel 16:25 πορνεία You have built your lofty place at the head of every way, and have made your beauty an abomination, and have opened your feet to everyone who passed by, and multiplied your prostitution.
- Ezekiel 16:33 πορνεία They give gifts to all prostitutes; but you give your gifts to all your lovers, and bribe them, that they may come to you on every side for your prostitution.
- Ezekiel 16:34 πορνεία 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.
- Ezekiel 16:36 πορνεία Thus says the Lord Yahweh, Because your filthiness was poured out, and your nakedness uncovered through your prostitution with your lovers; and because of all the idols of your abominations, and for the blood of your children, that you gave to them;
- Ezekiel 16:41 πορνεία They shall burn your houses with fire, and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women; and I will cause you to cease from playing the prostitute, and you shall also give no hire any more.
- Ezekiel 23:7 πορνεία She bestowed her prostitution on them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them; and on whoever she doted, with all their idols she defiled herself.
- Ezekiel 23:8 πορνεία Neither has she left her prostitution since [the days of] Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they handled the bosom of her virginity; and they poured out their prostitution on her.
- Ezekiel 23:11 πορνεία Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet was she more corrupt in her doting than she, and in her prostitution which were more than the prostitution of her sister.
- Ezekiel 23:14 πορνεία She increased her prostitution; for she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion,
- Ezekiel 23:17 πορνεία The Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their prostitution, and she was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them.
- Ezekiel 23:18 πορνεία So she uncovered her prostitution, and uncovered her nakedness: then my soul was alienated from her, like as my soul was alienated from her sister.
- Ezekiel 23:19 πορνεία Yet she multiplied her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had played the prostitute in the land of Egypt.
- Ezekiel 23:27 πορνεία Thus will I make your lewdness to cease from you, and your prostitution [brought] from the land of Egypt; so that you shall not lift up your eyes to them, nor remember Egypt any more.
- Ezekiel 23:29 πορνεία and they shall deal with you in hatred, and shall take away all your labor, and shall leave you naked and bare; and the nakedness of your prostitution shall be uncovered, both your lewdness and your prostitution.
- Ezekiel 23:35 πορνεία Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back, therefore bear you also your lewdness and your prostitution.
- Ezekiel 43:7 πορνεία He said to me, Son of man, [this is] the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever. The house of Israel shall no more defile my holy name, neither they, nor their kings, by their prostitution, and by the dead bodies of their kings [in] their high places;
- Ezekiel 43:9 πορνεία Now let them put away their prostitution, and the dead bodies of their kings, far from me; and I will dwell in the midst of them forever.
- Hosea 1:2 πορνεία When Yahweh spoke at the first by Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, "Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery against from Yahweh."
- Hosea 2:4 πορνεία Indeed, on her children I will have no mercy; For they are children of unfaithfulness;
- Hosea 2:6 πορνεία Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, And I will build a wall against her, That she can't find her way.
- Hosea 4:11 πορνεία Prostitution, wine, and new wine take away understanding.
- Hosea 4:12 πορνεία My people consult with their wooded idol, And answer to a stick of wood. Indeed the spirit of prostitution has led them astray, And they have been unfaithful to their God.
- Hosea 5:4 πορνεία Their deeds won't allow them to turn to their God; For the spirit of prostitution is within them, And they don't know Yahweh.
- Hosea 6:10 πορνεία In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing. There is prostitution in Ephraim. Israel is defiled.
- Micah 1:7 πορνεία All her idols will be beaten to pieces, And all her temple gifts will be burned with fire, And all her images I will destroy; For of the hire of a prostitute has she gathered them, And to the hire of a prostitute shall they return."
- Nahum 3:4 πορνεία because of the multitude of the prostitution of the alluring prostitute, the mistress of witchcraft, who sells nations through her prostitution, and families through her witchcraft.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4202) 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.
