To revile
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G3058 is a verb for reviling, insulting, or directing abusive speech at someone. Its four governed forms describe the Pharisees insulting the man whose sight Jesus restored, bystanders accusing Paul of insulting the high priest, the apostles being vilified while responding with blessing, and Jesus suffering abuse without retaliating in kind.
Reader summary
Full entry for λοιδορέω (G3058) · Open the biblical lexicon
G3058 is a verb for reviling, insulting, or directing abusive speech at someone. Its four governed forms describe the Pharisees insulting the man whose sight Jesus restored, bystanders accusing Paul of insulting the high priest, the apostles being vilified while responding with blessing, and Jesus suffering abuse without retaliating in kind.
The BSB source-word alignment has 4 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include How dare you insult (1), they heaped insults on (1), When they heaped abuse on Him (1), When we are vilified (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at John 9:28. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Corinthians (1), 1 Peter (1), Acts (1), John (1).
G3058 is a verb for reviling, insulting, or directing abusive speech at someone. Its four governed forms describe the Pharisees insulting the man whose sight Jesus restored, bystanders accusing Paul of insulting the high priest, the apostles being vilified while responding with blessing, and Jesus suffering abuse without retaliating in kind. The verb names hostile or degrading speech, but it does not make every disagreement, rebuke, accusation, or forceful correction an act of reviling.
Speaker, target, content, manner, and narrative evaluation remain essential. The apostolic and Christological responses prohibit mirrored abuse without requiring silence about wrongdoing or continued exposure to danger. Protective boundaries, truthful witness, church accountability, and lawful help must be evaluated from the wider biblical context rather than negated by this lexeme.
Four exact G3058 forms occur in four books. John and Acts narrate insulting speech, while 1 Corinthians and 1 Peter describe faithful responses to being reviled.
Then they heaped insults on him and said, ‘You are His disciple; we are disciples of Moses.’
The hostile speech belongs to the dispute over Jesus, the healing, and the man's testimony.
But those standing nearby said, ‘How dare you insult the high priest of God!’
The occurrence is an accusation about Paul's speech toward Ananias and must be read with Paul's answer.
We work hard with our own hands. When we are vilified, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it;
The apostolic response refuses to answer verbal abuse with verbal abuse.
When they heaped abuse on Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats, but entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.
Peter grounds non-retaliation in Jesus' conduct and trust in God's just judgment.
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. to revile
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
4 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I revile, abuse
Read verseI revile, abuse
Read verseI revile, abuse
Read verseI revile, abuse
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 4 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)
λοιδορέω is built from this root:
G3058 shows words being used to degrade and also shows faithful people refusing to reproduce that degradation. In John 9, insult appears within pressure against a healed man's testimony. In Acts 23, bystanders accuse Paul of insulting the high priest, and the narrative preserves his response. Paul describes apostles blessing when vilified, while Peter presents Jesus as the decisive pattern of suffering without retaliatory abuse.
These texts call Christians away from contempt and vengeance. They do not turn every correction into abuse, make every accusation accurate, or require victims to stay within another person's reach. A church shaped by these passages should resist degrading speech, receive truthful testimony, protect those being harmed, use accountable processes, and refuse revenge.
1Pet.2.23
The four governed forms include active insult in John and Acts and passive or middle-passive descriptions of being reviled in 1 Corinthians and 1 Peter. The verb concerns abusive speech rather than every severe statement.
Acts 23 explicitly invokes the scriptural command concerning speech about a ruler, while 1 Peter locates Jesus' response within the pattern of righteous suffering. Each connection should retain its immediate argument.