χρεία
necessity
‘necessity’ 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 Accusative-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
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- 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).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Accusative, Singular, Feminine 40 times (82%)
- Noun, Genitive, Singular, Feminine 3 times (6%)
- Noun, Accusative, Plural, Feminine 2 times (4%)
- Noun, Dative, Plural, Feminine 2 times (4%)
- Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine 2 times (4%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 49 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G5532 appears — 47 distinct verses across 14 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 6 verses
- Matthew 3:14 χρείαν n acc sg fem But John would have hindered him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?"
- Matthew 6:8 χρείαν n acc sg fem Therefore don't be like them, for your Father knows what things you need, before you ask him.
- Matthew 9:12 χρείαν n acc sg fem When Jesus heard it, he said to them, "Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick do.
- Matthew 14:16 χρείαν n acc sg fem But Jesus said to them, "They don't need to go away. You give them something to eat."
- Matthew 21:3 χρείαν n acc sg fem If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord needs them,' and immediately he will send them."
- Matthew 26:65 χρείαν n acc sg fem Then the high priest tore his clothing, saying, "He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Behold, now you have heard his blasphemy.
Mark 4 verses
- Mark 2:17 χρείαν n acc sg fem When Jesus heard it, he said to them, "Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
- Mark 2:25 χρείαν n acc sg fem He said to them, "Did you never read what David did, when he had need, and was hungry--he, and they who were with him?
- Mark 11:3 χρείαν n acc sg fem If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' say, 'The Lord needs him;' and immediately he will send him back here."
- Mark 14:63 χρείαν n acc sg fem The high priest tore his clothes, and said, "What further need have we of witnesses?
Luke 7 verses
- Luke 5:31 χρείαν n acc sg fem Jesus answered them, "Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick do.
- Luke 9:11 χρείαν n acc sg fem But the multitudes, perceiving it, followed him. He welcomed them, and spoke to them of the Kingdom of God, and he cured those who needed healing.
- Luke 10:42 χρεία n nom sg fem but one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her."
- Luke 15:7 χρείαν n acc sg fem I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.
- Luke 19:31 χρείαν n acc sg fem If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' say to him: 'The Lord needs it.'"
- Luke 19:34 χρείαν n acc sg fem They said, "The Lord needs it."
- Luke 22:71 χρείαν n acc sg fem They said, "Why do we need any more witness? For we ourselves have heard from his own mouth!"
John 4 verses
- John 2:25 χρείαν n acc sg fem and because he didn't need for anyone to testify concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man.
- John 13:10 χρείαν n acc sg fem Jesus said to him, "Someone who has bathed only needs to have his feet washed, but is completely clean. You are clean, but not all of you."
- John 13:29 χρείαν n acc sg fem For some thought, because Judas had the money box, that Jesus said to him, "Buy what things we need for the feast," or that he should give something to the poor.
- John 16:30 χρείαν n acc sg fem Now we know that you know all things, and don't need for anyone to question you. By this we believe that you came forth from God."
Acts 5 verses
- Acts 2:45 χρείαν n acc sg fem They sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them to all, according as anyone had need.
- Acts 4:35 χρείαν n acc sg fem and laid them at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made to each, according as anyone had need.
- Acts 6:3 χρείας n gen sg fem Therefore select from among you, brothers, seven men of good report, full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.
- Acts 20:34 χρείαις n dat pl fem You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities, and to those who were with me.
- Acts 28:10 χρείας n acc pl fem They also honored us with many honors, and when we sailed, they put on board the things that we needed.
Romans 1 verse
1 Corinthians 2 verses
- 1 Corinthians 12:21 χρείαν χρείαν n acc sg fem n acc sg fem The eye can't tell the hand, "I have no need for you," or again the head to the feet, "I have no need for you."
- 1 Corinthians 12:24 χρείαν n acc sg fem whereas our presentable parts have no such need. But God composed the body together, giving more abundant honor to the inferior part,
Ephesians 2 verses
- Ephesians 4:28 χρείαν n acc sg fem Let him who stole steal no more; but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need.
- Ephesians 4:29 χρείας n gen sg fem Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth, but such as is good for building up as the need may be, that it may give grace to those who hear.
Philippians 3 verses
- Philippians 2:25 χρείας n gen sg fem But I counted it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker, fellow soldier, and your apostle and minister to my need;
- Philippians 4:16 χρείαν n acc sg fem For even in Thessalonica you sent once and again to my need.
- Philippians 4:19 χρείαν n acc sg fem My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 4 verses
- 1 Thessalonians 1:8 χρείαν n acc sg fem For from you has sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth; so that we need not to say anything.
- 1 Thessalonians 4:9 χρείαν n acc sg fem But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that one write to you. For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another,
- 1 Thessalonians 4:12 χρείαν n acc sg fem that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and may have need of nothing.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:1 χρείαν n acc sg fem But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need that anything be written to you.
Titus 1 verse
Hebrews 3 verses
- Hebrews 5:12 χρείαν χρείαν n acc sg fem n acc sg fem For when by reason of the time you ought to be teachers, you again need to have someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God. You have come to need milk, and not solid food.
- Hebrews 7:11 χρεία n nom sg fem Now if there was perfection through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people have received the law), what further need was there for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, and not be called after the order of Aaron?
- Hebrews 10:36 χρείαν n acc sg fem For you need endurance so that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise.
1 John 2 verses
- 1 John 2:27 χρείαν n acc sg fem As for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you don't need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, you will remain in him.
- 1 John 3:17 χρείαν n acc sg fem But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and closes his heart of compassion against him, how does the love of God remain in him?
Revelation 3 verses
- Revelation 3:17 χρείαν n acc sg fem Because you say, 'I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;' and don't know that you are the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked;
- Revelation 21:23 χρείαν n acc sg fem The city has no need for the sun, neither of the moon, to shine, for the very glory of God illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb.
- Revelation 22:5 χρείαν n acc sg fem There will be no night, and they need no lamp light; for the Lord God will illuminate them. They will reign forever and ever.
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.
The Greek noun χρεια centers on the idea of “necessity.” First canonically at Matthew 3:14, it enters the text early. It turns up in 47 verses across 14 books, a moderately common footprint. Lexicons map it across 2 senses. It clusters with χραομαι, χραω and χρη under a shared root. Dig into 47-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G5532 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 →
- 47
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 47 distinct verses.
- 14 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 14 of 27 New Testament books.
- #316
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Greek words (rank 316 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 47 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 47 distinct verses.
- Gospels 21 verses · 45%
- Pauline corpus 13 verses · 28%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 12 verses · 26%
- Johannine 9 verses · 19%
- Hebrews 3 verses · 6%
- Revelation 3 verses · 6%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 2 verses · 4%
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: Need 26×, Necessity 2×, Need of 2×
- American Standard Version: Need 35×
- Berean Standard Bible: Need 30×, Needs 11×, Needed 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Need 40×, Needs 6×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G5532 across 46 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 3 further occurrences.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G5532 across 47 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 G5532 across 48 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G5532 across 53 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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.
- necessity, need
- duty, business
Word origin
Derived from χραομαι (chráomai) (G5530) — to borrow.
Forms in the corpus
The 4 distinct written forms G5532 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| χρείαν chreían | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Feminine | Matthew 3:14 | 40 |
| χρείας chreías | Noun, Genitive, Singular, Feminine | Acts 6:3 | 5 |
| χρεία chreía | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine | Luke 10:42 | 2 |
| χρείαις chreíais | Noun, Dative, Plural, Feminine | Acts 20:34 | 2 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G5532, 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
- χραω chráō G5531 to lend
- χρη chrḗ G5534 it is necessary
- χρησις chrēsis G5540 use
- χρηστος chrēstós G5543 fit
- χριω chríō G5548 to anoint
- χρυσος chrysós G5557 gold
- χρως chrṓs G5559 skin
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 10 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word χρεια appears 9 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 9 verses in 8 books.
- 9
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 9
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 8 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 8 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- 2 Chronicles 2:15 χρεία
- Ezra 7:20 χρεία
- Job 31:16 χρεία
- Psalms 15:2 χρεία
- Proverbs 18:2 χρεία
- Isaiah 13:17 χρεία
- Jeremiah 22:28 χρεία
- Daniel 3:16 χρεία
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G5532) 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.
- 2 Chronicles 2:15 χρεία Now therefore the wheat and the barley, the oil and the wine, which my lord has spoken of, let him send to his servants:
- Ezra 7:20 χρεία Whatever more shall be needful for the house of your God, which you shall have occasion to bestow, bestow it out of the king's treasure-house.
- Job 31:16 χρεία "If I have withheld the poor from their desire, Or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail,
- Psalms 15:2 χρεία He who walks blamelessly does what is right, And speaks truth in his heart;
- Proverbs 18:2 χρεία A fool has no delight in understanding, But only in revealing his own opinion.
- Isaiah 13:17 χρεία Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not regard silver, and as for gold, they shall not delight in it.
- Jeremiah 22:28 χρεία Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? is he a vessel in which none delights? why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into the land which they don't know?
- Jeremiah 31:38 χρεία Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that the city shall be built to Yahweh from the tower of Hananel to the gate of the corner.
- Daniel 3:16 χρεία Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G5532) 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.
