Corrupt
A kapēlos was a retail dealer, known for watering his wine; the many did the same with the word of God.
Modern versions: “peddling” (NASB, NKJV), “peddlers” (ESV), “peddle … for profit” (NIV)
Kapēleuō comes only here in the New Testament. It is the verb of the kapēlos, the small dealer who sold goods by retail, wine above all. Such dealers were known for watering their wine to make it go further, and so the word came to mean to adulterate for gain. Strong’s gives both: “to retail, that is, (by implication) to adulterate.”
The Old Testament shows the trade. Where the KJV has “thy wine mixed with water” (Isaiah 1:22), the Greek Old Testament reads “thy dealers (kapēloi) mix the wine with water.” John Chrysostom, preaching on this verse in Greek about AD 390, read Paul so: “For this is to corrupt, when one adulterates the wine; when one sells for money what he ought to give freely.” He cites the same words of Isaiah, and says Paul offers his hearers “the word undiluted.”
The early translations read it the same way. The Latin Bible has adulterantes verbum Dei, “adulterating the word of God,” and Wycliffe “don auoutrie bi the word of God.” Tyndale has “choppe and chaunge with,” to trade and to tamper, and the Geneva Bible “make marchandise of.” The KJV chose “corrupt,” which Webster in 1828 still defines as “to falsify; to infect with errors; as, to corrupt the sacred text.”
Paul says the same again in 2 Corinthians 4:2, “not handling the word of God deceitfully,” and sets against both his own speaking “of sincerity … in the sight of God.” “Peddling” keeps the selling. “Corrupt” keeps what the seller did to his goods, and what the many did to the word.
Where the King James Bible Has It
Sources
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τὸ ἀργύριον ὑμῶν ἀδόκιμον· οἱ κάπηλοί σου μίσγουσι τὸν οἶνον ὕδατι·
Checked against: Elpenor, 2026-10-19 -
For this is to corrupt, when one adulterates the wine; when one sells for money what he ought to give freely. … ‘But we,’ says he, ‘do not so: but such as we have been entrusted with, such do we offer you, pouring out the word undiluted.’
Checked against: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 12, New Advent, 2026-10-19 -
non enim sumus sicut plurimi, adulterantes verbum Dei, sed ex sinceritate, sed sicut ex Deo, coram Deo, in Christo loquimur.
Checked against: The Latin Library, 2026-10-19 -
For we ben not as many, that don auoutrie bi the word of God, but we speken of clennesse, as of God, bifor God in Crist.
Checked against: Wikisource, 2026-10-19 -
For we are not as many are which choppe and chaunge with the worde of God: but even oute of purenes and by the power of God and in the sight of God so speake we in Christ.
Checked against: Wikisource, 2026-10-19 -
For wee are not as many, which make marchandise of the woorde of God: but as of sinceritie, but as of God in ye sight of God speake we in Christ.
Checked against: Wikisource, 2026-10-19 -
Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), “Corrupt”
To pervert; to falsify; to infect with errors; as, to corrupt the sacred text.
Checked against: webstersdictionary1828.com, 2026-10-19
