Ungodly
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G765, asebḗs, is a Greek adjective meaning ungodly or irreverent, often used substantivally for an ungodly person or group. Its ten governed New Testament tokens appear in nine verses because Jude 1:15 uses the adjective twice.
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Full entry for ἀσεβής (G765) · Open the biblical lexicon
G765, asebḗs, is a Greek adjective meaning ungodly or irreverent, often used substantivally for an ungodly person or group. Its ten governed New Testament tokens appear in nine verses because Jude 1:15 uses the adjective twice.
The BSB source-word alignment has 10 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include ungodly (3), [the] ungodly (1), by ungodly (1), for [the] ungodly (1), of ungodly (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Romans 4:5. Its strongest book concentrations include 2 Peter (3), Jude (3), Romans (2), 1 Peter (1).
G765, asebḗs, is a Greek adjective meaning ungodly or irreverent, often used substantivally for an ungodly person or group. Its ten governed New Testament tokens appear in nine verses because Jude 1:15 uses the adjective twice. Masculine singular and plural forms occur in nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative cases. The word marks a life or posture that lacks proper reverence toward God, but the adjective alone does not encode a universal degree of conscious hostility, deliberate intent, or knowledge.
A passage may describe active opposition, but that conclusion must come from the conduct and context rather than being inserted into every lexical occurrence. Romans 4:5 provides the decisive gospel restraint. Paul does not present the ungodly merely as a distant class for religious people to condemn. He says that God justifies the ungodly and credits righteousness through faith apart from works.
Romans 5:6 deepens that center by declaring that Christ died for the ungodly while people were still powerless. These verses preserve the seriousness of sin while forbidding self-righteous use of the label. The Christian's hope rests in God's justifying grace and Christ's saving death, not in claiming moral superiority over other sinners. First Timothy 1:9 places the adjective in a list for whom the law is properly used.
The surrounding passage opposes speculative misuse of teaching and points toward love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. The list is not permission to turn ungodly into a slur, conduct a public diagnosis without evidence, or make a stigmatized person carry the whole category. Law names and restrains sin, but only the gospel of the blessed God saves sinners, as Paul's own testimony soon illustrates.
First Peter 4:18 asks where the ungodly and sinner will appear, drawing on Scripture while addressing believers who suffer according to God's will. The paragraph calls them to entrust themselves to a faithful Creator and continue doing good. Second Peter 2 and 3 speak of judgment on the ungodly, with the flood and Sodom as examples, yet the letter also distinguishes God's rescue of the righteous and explains apparent delay through divine patience and the call to repentance.
Judgment texts should be taught with their actual covenant and eschatological purpose, not turned into casual predictions about named contemporary people or disasters. Jude 1:4 identifies particular infiltrators who pervert grace into license and deny Jesus Christ, while Jude 1:15 twice uses G765 in the announcement of judgment on ungodly people, acts, and harsh words.
The letter supplies conduct and confession rather than relying on a bare epithet. It also commands believers to keep themselves in God's love, show mercy with discernment, and look to Jesus Christ for eternal life. G765 therefore holds judgment and mercy together under the lordship of Christ. It names real rebellion, but its gospel use begins with the God who justifies the ungodly and the Christ who dies for them.
G765 describes the ungodly or irreverent and can function substantivally for people characterized that way. Romans places the term at the heart of justification and Christ's saving death, while the Pastoral and Catholic Epistles use it in teaching about lawful moral judgment, suffering, historical and final judgment, corrupt teachers, repentance, and mercy.
However, to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.
God justifies the ungodly and credits righteousness through faith apart from works, making grace rather than moral superiority the companion's gospel center.
For at just the right time, while we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Christ dies for the ungodly while people are still powerless, joining the adjective to divine initiative and substitutionary saving love.
We realize that law is not enacted for the righteous, but for the lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for killers of father or mother, for murderers,
The law is properly directed toward lawless and ungodly conduct within a passage that rejects speculative misuse and seeks love, conscience, and sincere faith.
And, “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”
A scriptural question contrasts the outcome of the ungodly with suffering believers, who are told to entrust themselves to a faithful Creator and continue doing good.
If He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, among the eight;
The ancient flood is presented as judgment on an ungodly world while Noah is preserved as a preacher of righteousness.
If He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, reducing them to ashes as an example of what is coming on the ungodly;
Sodom and Gomorrah become an example of judgment on the ungodly, and the next verse emphasizes God's rescue of Lot from lawless conduct.
And by that same word, the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
The present creation is kept for a day of judgment on the ungodly within a chapter that also emphasizes divine patience and repentance.
For certain men have crept in among you unnoticed—ungodly ones who were designated long ago for condemnation. They turn the grace of our God into a license for immorality, and they deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Jude identifies specific infiltrators through their perversion of grace and denial of Jesus Christ rather than through an unsupported label alone.
To execute judgment on everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of every ungodly act of wickedness and every harsh word spoken against Him by ungodly sinners.”
Two tokens intensify the judgment scene by naming ungodly people, acts, and harsh words, while the letter later calls believers to mercy and hope in 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. Actively hostile toward God and His worship; not merely irreligious but deliberately impious.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
9 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
impious, ungodly, wicked
Read verseimpious, ungodly, wicked
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Read verseimpious, ungodly, wicked
Read verseimpious, ungodly, wicked
Read verseimpious, ungodly, wicked
Read verseimpious, ungodly, wicked
Read verseimpious, ungodly, wicked
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 6 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 10 lexical occurrence verses.
ἀσεβής is built from these roots:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Romans 4:5 gives G765 its controlling pastoral center: God justifies the ungodly. Paul excludes boasting by contrasting work that earns wages with faith in the One who grants righteousness apart from works. Romans 5:6 then grounds that verdict in Christ's death for the ungodly while they were powerless. The word therefore does not create a safe class of righteous speakers looking down on condemned outsiders.
It identifies the kind of people grace reaches. First Timothy shows that God's law still names and restrains ungodliness, while Peter and Jude announce real historical and final judgment. Those warnings are neither erased by grace nor detached from it. Second Peter includes rescue, patience, and repentance; Jude describes concrete corruption and also commands discerning mercy; First Peter directs suffering believers toward their faithful Creator and continued good.
Teachers may name ungodliness where Scripture and evidence warrant it, but they must not pretend the adjective proves every person's subjective intent. The church speaks faithfully when it holds sin, judgment, Christ's saving death, justification by faith, repentance, holiness, and mercy together.
Rom.4.5
G765, asebḗs, is an adjective that frequently functions substantivally. The selected artifact and local table agree on ten tokens, while the table distributes them across nine verses in five books because Jude 1:15 contains two tokens; three genitive masculine plurals, three nominative masculine plurals, two dative masculine plurals, one nominative masculine singular, and one accusative masculine singular are represented.
Peter and Jude draw on Israel's histories and Scriptures when they speak of judgment on the ungodly, while Paul places the same moral category within the good news of justification and Christ's death. The canonical continuity concerns God's holiness, justice, mercy, and saving initiative, not a claim that G765 is the direct lexical equivalent of one Hebrew adjective.