Chapter 19: Myth—Sexuality Doesn’t Matter

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Depending upon translation, you can expect to find an intermingling

of the words, lewdness, lasciviousness, licentiousness and debauchery. They are often used interchangeably as references to sexual immorality. The word lewd shows up three times in the King James Bible. It is used in the context of lewd acts, lewd women and lewd fellows [men]. Guess that covers all the

bases, but it doesn’t give us clarity to the term itself. To get a better feel for the issue of being lewd, you will need to examine the word lewdness. An examination of how different Bible translations treat the word lewdness in Judges 20:6 is interesting. We’ll use the King James as a base translation.

Lewdness – Judges 20:6 KJV

KJV “lewdness” NKJV “lewdness” NAB “monstrous crime”

NAS “a lewd and disgraceful act” NJB “a shameful act” NIV “this lewd and disgraceful act” NRSV “a vile outrage”

LIV “a terrible crime” NLT “a terrible and shameful crime” GW “did this perverted and godless thing”

I’ll talk further about the subject of Judges 20:6 shortly. However,

one cannot help but notice the disparity in the descriptive words used from being lewd to being a vile outrage or even a terrible crime. These words and even the word lewdness, fails to convey the message that the perpetrators are headed for the lake of fire, because they are engaged in sexual immorality.

In short, this verse like many others fails to convey the complete message that you need to hear concerning sexual immorality. I’ll have to admit, I doubt if you will get a complete picture here in this chapter as well. The best I can hope to do for you is to sound a warning alarm if you call yourself a

Christian. God has expectations concerning our sexuality. Perhaps I will spur you on to your own Bible study on the subject of sex. Unlike the word lewd, you won’t find the word lascivious in the KJV. You’ll have to search on lasciviousness, which provides the following comparison.