Delusion
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G539 is a Greek noun for deception, deceitfulness, delusion, or a misleading enticement. Hebrews 3:13 warns believers to encourage one another daily so none becomes hardened by sin's deceitfulness, locating discernment in a persevering community.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἀπάτη (G539) · Open the biblical lexicon
G539 is a Greek noun for deception, deceitfulness, delusion, or a misleading enticement. Hebrews 3:13 warns believers to encourage one another daily so none becomes hardened by sin's deceitfulness, locating discernment in a persevering community.
The BSB source-word alignment has 7 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include deceitfulness (3), deception (3), deceitful (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 13:22. Its strongest book concentrations include 2 Peter (1), 2 Thessalonians (1), Colossians (1), Ephesians (1).
G539 is a Greek noun for deception, deceitfulness, delusion, or a misleading enticement. Hebrews 3:13 warns believers to encourage one another daily so none becomes hardened by sin's deceitfulness, locating discernment in a persevering community. Mark 4:19 says the worries of life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and other desires can choke the word and make it unfruitful.
Colossians 2:8 warns against being taken captive through hollow deception based on merely human tradition and the elemental powers of the world rather than Christ. Other uses concern wicked deception, deceitful desires, and false fellowship. G539 opens sin's distortion, wealth's promises, intellectual captivity, desire, and communal vigilance. It corrects the idea that deception is only an obvious external lie and the opposite error of using the word to reject learning, questions, philosophy as a discipline, or every tradition outside one's own group.
G539 names the misleading power of false appearance, desire, teaching, or promise. It can modify sin, wealth, desire, or a system of thought. Its danger lies in making what harms appear trustworthy, necessary, pleasurable, or spiritually superior.
But exhort one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
Daily mutual encouragement protects the community from the hardening power of sin's deceitfulness.
But the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
Wealth's deceitfulness joins anxiety and other desires in choking the received word before it bears fruit.
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, which are based on human tradition and the spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ.
The church is warned against captivity to hollow deception grounded in human tradition and worldly powers rather than Christ.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Deceptive allure that ensnares through false promises—wealth, sin, desire—rather than conscious lying.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
7 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
deceit, deception
Read versedeceit, deception
Read versedeceit, deception
Read versedeceit, deception
Read versedeceit, deception
Read versedeceit, deception
Read versedeceit, deception
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 4 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 7 lexical occurrence verses.
ἀπάτη is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G539 exposes deception as something that often works through plausible goods. Wealth can appear to guarantee control while gradually choking generosity, dependence on God, and attention to neighbors. Sin can offer relief or belonging while hardening a person against warning. Teaching can sound sophisticated or traditional and still move hearers away from Christ.
The answer is not permanent suspicion of everyone. Hebrews places resistance within daily encouragement, shared perseverance, and responsiveness to God's voice. Healthy communities make room for questions, disclose conflicts of interest, check factual claims, and observe long-term fruit. They also recognize that vulnerable people may be targeted through urgency, fear, spiritual promises, or financial pressure.
Calling something deception is a serious judgment that should be supported, not a weapon against dissent. Discernment is patient enough to examine sources and humble enough to admit correction. Christ, not a leader's charisma, prosperity, novelty, or inherited custom, remains the controlling center.
Heb.3.13
G539 is a feminine noun commonly rendered deceit or deceitfulness. Genitive constructions such as deceitfulness of wealth or deceitfulness of sin identify what exercises misleading power, while other contexts stress a deceptive system or practice.
Wisdom literature repeatedly contrasts the path that seems right with its destructive end and warns about dishonest gain. Jesus and the apostles join discernment to fruit, truth, community endurance, and allegiance to Christ rather than isolated certainty.