To workout/produce
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Κατεργάζομαι means to carry out, accomplish, produce, bring about, or work something through to its result. Paul uses it for sinful conduct producing its due consequence, for decisive disciplinary action, for affliction producing an eternal weight of glory, for doing everything necessary to stand in spiritual conflict, and for believers working out their salvation.
Reader summary
Full entry for κατεργάζομαι (G2716) · Open the biblical lexicon
Κατεργάζομαι means to carry out, accomplish, produce, bring about, or work something through to its result. Paul uses it for sinful conduct producing its due consequence, for decisive disciplinary action, for affliction producing an eternal weight of glory, for doing everything necessary to stand in spiritual conflict, and for believers working out their.
The BSB source-word alignment has 22 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include brings (2), who do (2), [your generosity] will produce (1), carrying out (1), committed (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Romans 1:27. Its strongest book concentrations include Romans (11), 2 Corinthians (6), 1 Corinthians (1), 1 Peter (1).
Κατεργάζομαι means to carry out, accomplish, produce, bring about, or work something through to its result. Paul uses it for sinful conduct producing its due consequence, for decisive disciplinary action, for affliction producing an eternal weight of glory, for doing everything necessary to stand in spiritual conflict, and for believers working out their salvation.
The verb emphasizes effective activity or resulting outcome, but it does not tell whether the work is righteous, sinful, divine, or human. Philippians does not say believers create salvation; the next verse identifies God as the one working in them. Every occurrence must be read with its subject, object, means, and result clearly in view.
Κατεργάζομαι focuses on activity carried through to an outcome. Sin, discipline, suffering, resistance, and obedient salvation each produce or accomplish different results under their own contexts.
Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Paul describes disordered desire issuing in indecent acts and fitting consequence, joining inward rejection of God to embodied moral outcome.
Although I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit, and I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present.
Paul has already reached a disciplinary judgment while absent, pressing the church to act against serious, unrepentant evil in its midst.
For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond comparison.
Affliction produces an incomparable eternal weight of glory because God's renewing work and unseen future frame the suffering, not because pain is good in itself.
Therefore take up the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you will be able to stand your ground, and having done everything, to stand.
Believers take up God's armor so they may accomplish all required resistance and remain standing in the evil day.
Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
The church works out the salvation already given with reverent seriousness, immediately grounded in God's active work of willing and doing within them.
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. Intensive form meaning to bring about a complete result through sustained effort or labor.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 24 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
Read verseI work out, produce, accomplish
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 mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
How this verb appears across 22 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 22 lexical occurrence verses.
κατεργάζομαι is built from these roots:
What is carried through eventually bears fruit. Romans 1 traces rejected truth into practiced disorder and consequence. First Corinthians requires a church to act rather than tolerate destructive sin. Second Corinthians describes suffering within resurrection hope, where temporary affliction produces eternal glory under God's renewing purpose. Ephesians pictures resistance that uses armor God supplies, and Philippians commands believers to work out salvation because God is already at work within them.
These passages hold agency without rivalry. Human actions matter, church discipline matters, endurance matters, and obedience matters; none displaces God's initiative or sustaining power. Pastoral teaching should call believers into serious action while rejecting both passive fatalism and anxious merit-making. Grace creates and empowers the obedience it commands.
Rom.1.27
Κατεργάζομαι intensifies the work verb with a prefix that can stress carrying through or producing a result. It often takes a direct object naming what is accomplished or generated.
Wisdom traces conduct toward harvest, prophets expose injustice people practice, and God accomplishes redemption beyond human strength. Paul places active obedience inside God's effective grace.