Do Not Be Unequally Yoked

The command mē ginesthe heterozygountes, “do not become unequally yoked,” uses a rare verb probably evoking the prohibition against yoking unlike animals together in Deuteronomy 22:10. Paul does not specify one social institution such as marriage, business partnership, or civic association. The following rhetorical questions instead define the issue broadly as incompatible religious allegiance: righteousness versus lawlessness, light versus darkness, Christ versus Belial, believer versus unbeliever, and the temple of God versus idols. “Belial” is a Jewish designation for a figure or power associated with wickedness and is used here as an antithesis to Christ.

Paul’s declaration “we are the temple of the living God” grounds the exhortation ecclesiologically. The citation that follows combines language from Leviticus 26:11-12 and Ezekiel 37:27, portraying God as dwelling and walking among his people. Verses 17-18 then weave together Isaiah 52:11, possibly Ezekiel 20:34, and the father-son language of 2 Samuel 7:14. The result is not a verbatim quotation from one passage but a scriptural catena that applies Israel’s holiness and temple imagery to the Corinthian community.

Scholars have long debated whether 6:14-7:1 is integral to its context because 7:2 appears to resume the appeal of 6:11-13, and the section contains distinctive vocabulary. Some have proposed that it is a Pauline fragment inserted here, while others see its themes of holiness, reconciliation, and covenant identity as fitting Paul’s argument. Whatever its compositional history, in the present letter it defines reconciliation with God in terms of exclusive cultic allegiance and communal holiness.

Second Corinthians 6 continues Paul’s appeal as an ambassador of reconciliation from 5:20-21. Verses 1-2 urge the Corinthians not to receive God’s grace “in vain,” supporting the appeal with Isaiah 49:8 and identifying the present apostolic mission as the divinely appointed time of salvation. Verses 3-13 then defend the credibility of Paul’s ministry through a catalog of hardships, virtues, and paradoxes. Rather than treating suffering as evidence against his apostleship, Paul presents endurance amid affliction as characteristic of servants of God.

Verses 14-18 shift to a forceful summons to separation from incompatible religious allegiance. A sequence of rhetorical questions contrasts righteousness and lawlessness, light and darkness, Christ and Belial, believer and unbeliever, and God’s temple and idols. Paul then assembles scriptural language chiefly from Leviticus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and 2 Samuel to describe the community as God’s dwelling. The chapter thus joins reconciliation with holiness: restored relationship with God entails both openness toward Paul’s ministry and exclusive covenant loyalty.