Ephesians 5:16

Amplified Bible

making the very most of your time [on earth, recognizing and taking advantage of each opportunity and using it with wisdom and diligence], because the days are [filled with] evil.

Parallel Translations

Easy-to-Read Version
I mean that you should use every opportunity you have for doing good, because these are evil times.

Revised Standard Version
making the most of the time, because the days are evil.

Tyndale New Testament (1525)
redemynge the tyme: for ye dayes are evyll.

Hebrew Names Version
redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

New American Standard Bible
making the most of your time, because the days are evil.

New Century Version
Use every chance you have for doing good, because these are evil times.

Update Bible Version
redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Webster's Bible Translation
Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

English Standard Version
making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

World English Bible
redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Wesley's New Testament (1755)
not as fools, but as wise men, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Weymouth's New Testament
Buy up your opportunities, for these are evil times.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
not as vnwise men, but as wise men, ayenbiynge tyme, for the daies ben yuele.

English Revised Version
redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Berean Standard Bible
redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Contemporary English Version
These are evil times, so make every minute count.

American Standard Version
redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Bible in Basic English
Making good use of the time, because the days are evil.

Complete Jewish Bible
Use your time well, for these are evil days.

Darby Translation
redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

International Standard Version
making the best use of timebuying up the time">[fn] because the days are evil.Ecclesiastes 11:2; 12:1; John 12:35; Galatians 6:10; Ephesians 6:15; Colossians 4:5;">[xr]

Etheridge Translation
but as the wise who redeem their opportunity, because the days are evil.

Murdock Translation
but like the wise, who purchase their opportunity; because the days are evil.

King James Version (1611)
Redeming the time, because the dayes are euill.

New Living Translation
Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.

New Life Bible
Make the best use of your time. These are sinful days.

New Revised Standard
making the most of the time, because the days are evil.

Geneva Bible (1587)
Redeeming ye season: for ye daies are euill.

George Lamsa Translation
Who take advantage of their opportunity, for these are difficult days.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Buying out for yourselves the opportunity, because, the days, are evil;

Douay-Rheims Bible
But as wise: redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Redeemyng the time, because ye dayes are euyll.

Good News Translation
Make good use of every opportunity you have, because these are evil days.

Christian Standard Bible®
making the most of the time, because the days are evil.

King James Version
Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Lexham English Bible
making the most of the time because the days are evil.

Literal Translation
redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Young's Literal Translation
redeeming the time, because the days are evil;

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
and redeme the tyme, for it is a miserable tyme.

Mace New Testament (1729)
weighing the circumstances of the season, because the times are dangerous.

New English Translation
taking advantage of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

New King James Version
redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Simplified Cowboy Version
Pay attention to every single opportunity to do good, even though the days are evil.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
making the most of your time, because the days are evil.

Legacy Standard Bible
redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Contextual Overview

³But sexual immorality and all [moral] impurity [indecent, offensive behavior] or greed must not even be hinted at among you, as is proper among saints [for as believers our way of life, whether in public or in private, reflects the validity of our faith]. ⁴Let there be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse [obscene or vulgar] joking, because such things are not appropriate [for believers]; but instead speak of your thankfulness [to God]. ⁵For be sure of this: no immoral, impure, or greedy person—for that one is [in effect] an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God [for such a person places a higher value on something other than God]. ⁶Let no one deceive you with empty arguments [that encourage you to sin], for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience [those who habitually sin]. ⁷So do not participate or even associate with them [in the rebelliousness of sin]. ⁸For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of Light [live as those who are native-born to the Light] ⁹(for the fruit [the effect, the result] of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), ¹⁰trying to learn [by experience] what is pleasing to the Lord [and letting your lifestyles be examples of what is most acceptable to Him—your behavior expressing gratitude to God for your salvation]. ¹¹Do not participate in the worthless and unproductive deeds of darkness, but instead expose them [by exemplifying personal integrity, moral courage, and godly character]; ¹²for it is disgraceful even to mention the things that such people practice in secret.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Redeeming: Ecclesiastes 9:10, Romans 13:11, Galatians 6:10, Colossians 4:5

the days: Ephesians 6:13, Ephesians 6:15, Psalms 37:19, Ecclesiastes 11:2, Ecclesiastes 12:1, Amos 5:13, John 12:35, Acts 11:28, Acts 11:29, 1 Corinthians 7:26, 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Reciprocal: Genesis 29:7 - Lo Psalms 49:5 - days Psalms 90:12 - So Daniel 2:8 - gain Daniel 9:25 - wall Micah 2:3 - for Matthew 25:17 - he also John 9:4 - while Acts 17:21 - spent

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Redeeming the time,.... Or "buying time"; a like expression is used in Daniel 2:8, which we render, gain time: but in the Chaldee text it is, "buy time": and so Jacchiades, a Jewish commentator on the place, renders it, העת הזאת אתם נמכרים, "ye buy this opportunity"; and the Septuagint version uses the same phrase the apostle does here; but there it seems to signify a study to prolong time, to put off the business to another season; but here taking time for a space of time, it denotes a careful and diligent use of it, an improvement of it to the best advantage; and shows that it is valuable and precious, and is not to be trifled with, and squandered away, and be lost, as it may be; for it can neither be recalled nor prolonged: and taking it for an opportunity of doing good to ourselves or others, it signifies that no opportunity of discharging our duty to God and man, of attending on the word and ordinances of the Gospel, and to the private and public exercises of religion, of gaining advantage to our own souls, or of gaining the souls of others, and of doing good either to the bodies or souls of men, should be neglected; but even all risks should be run, and means used to enjoy it: in the Syriac and Chaldee languages, זמנא, "time", comes from זבן, "to redeem": the reason the apostle gives for the redemption of time is,

because the days are evil; as such are, in which iniquity abounds, and many wicked men live, and errors and heresies prevail, and are days of affliction or persecution; see Genesis 47:9.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Redeeming the time - The word rendered here as “redeeming,” means “to purchase; to buy up” from the possession or power of anyone; and then to redeem, to set free - as from service or bondage; notes, Galatians 3:13. Here it means, to rescue or recover our time from waste; to improve it for great and important purposes.

Because the days are evil - Because the times in which you live are evil. There are many allurements and temptations that would lead you away from the proper improvement of time, and that would draw you into sin. Such were those that would tempt them to go to places of sinful indulgence and revelry where their time would be wasted, and worse than wasted. As these temptations abounded, they ought therefore to be more especially on their guard against a sinful and unprofitable waste of time. This exhortation may be addressed to all, and is applicable to all periods. The sentiment is, that we ought to be solicitous to improve our time to some useful purpose, because “there are, in an evil world, so many temptations to waste it.” Time is given us for most valuable purposes. There are things enough to be done to occupy it all, and no one need have it hang heavy on his hands. He that has a soul to be saved from eternal death, need not have one idle moment. He that has a heaven to win, has enough to do to occupy all his time. Man has just enough given him to accomplish all the purposes which God designs, and God has not given him more than enough. They redeem their time who employ it:

(1)In gaining useful knowledge;

(2)In doing good to others;

(3)In employing it for the purpose of an honest livelihood for themselves and families;

(4)In prayer and self-examination to make the heart better;

(5)In seeking salvation, and in endeavoring to do the will of God.

They are to redeem time from all that would waste and destroy it - like recovering marshes and fens to make them rich meadows and vineyards. There is time enough wasted by each sinner to secure the salvation of the soul; time enough wasted to do all that is needful to be done to spread religion around the world, and to save the race. We should still endeavor to redeem our time for the same reasons which are suggested by the apostle - because the days are evil. There are evil influences abroad; allurements and vices that would waste time, and from which we should endeavor to rescue it. There are evil influences tending to waste time:

(1)In the allurements to pleasure and amusement in every place, and especially in cities;

(2)In the temptations to novel-reading, consuming the precious hours of probation to no valuable purpose;

(3)In the temptations of ambition, most of the time spent for which is wholly thrown away, for few gain the prize, and when gained, it is all a bauble, not worth the effort;

(4)In dissipation - for who can estimate the amount of valuable time that is worse than thrown away in the places of revelry and dissipation;

(5)In wild and visionary plans - temptations to which abound in all lands, and pre-eminently in our own;

(6)And in luxurious indulgence - in dressing, and eating, and drinking.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 16. Redeeming the time — Εξαγοραζομενοι τον καιρον· Buying up those moments which others seem to throw away; steadily improving every present moment, that ye may, in some measure, regain the time ye have lost. Let time be your chief commodity; deal in that alone; buy it all up, and use every portion of it yourselves. Time is that on which eternity depends; in time ye are to get a preparation for the kingdom of God; if you get not this in time, your ruin is inevitable; therefore, buy up the time.

Some think there is an allusion here to the case of debtors, who, by giving some valuable consideration to their creditors, obtain farther time for paying their debts. And this appears to be the sense in which it is used by the Septuagint, Daniel 2:8: Επ' αληθειας οιδα εγω, ὁτι καιρον ὑμεις εξαγοραζετε· I know certainly that ye would gain or buy time-ye wish to have the time prolonged, that ye may seek out for some plausible explanation of the dream. Perhaps the apostle means in general, embrace every opportunity to glorify God, save your own souls, and do good to men.

Because the days are evil. — The present times are dangerous, they are full of trouble and temptations, and only the watchful and diligent have any reason to expect that they shall keep their garments unspotted.