καταργέω

Luke 13:7 καταργεῖ;¶ should it use up?

So he said to the keeper of the vineyard, ‘Look, for the past three years I have come to search for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Therefore cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

Here: 'Makes idle' or 'puts out of work.' The tree takes the ground's moisture and nutrients and gives nothing back, so productive soil is wasted. The present tense means it is doing this right now and keeps doing it.

Romans 3:3 καταργήσει; will nullify?

What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness?

Here: "Will make null / put out of action." The question is whether human failure could switch off God's commitment and leave it idle. Paul uses the same verb again in 3:31 and 4:14.

Romans 3:31 καταργοῦμεν do we nullify

Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Certainly not! Instead, we uphold the law.

Here: 'Are we putting it out of action?' The verb means to make something idle or powerless so that it no longer has force. It is present tense: is our preaching doing this now?

Romans 4:14 κατήργηται has been nullified

For if those who live by the law are heirs, faith is useless and the promise is worthless,

Romans 6:6 καταργηθῇ may be annulled

We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.

Here: 'Might be put out of action / made ineffective'. A favourite Pauline word for depriving something of its force or hold. It does not mean physical annihilation. It is the same verb used of believers being 'released' from the law (7:6) and of death being 'abolished' (1 Cor 15:26).

Romans 7:2 κατήργηται she has been cleared

For instance, a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.

Here: Perfect passive: 'she has been rendered inactive with respect to the law.' The law has nothing left to act on, so she stands permanently outside its reach. It is one of Paul's favourite words.

Romans 7:6 κατηργήθημεν we have been released

But now, having died to what bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

Here: "We were released / cut loose." It is the same verb as 7:2, where a widow is "released from the law of the husband." The passive leaves God as the unstated one who releases. The past tense points to one decisive event, our union with Christ's death (7:4).

1 Corinthians 1:28 καταργήσῃ, He may annul,

He chose the lowly and despised things of the world, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are,

Here: "He might put out of action" or "render powerless." Paul uses the same verb for the passing away of "the rulers of this age" (2:6) and of every power at the end (15:24).

1 Corinthians 2:6 καταργουμένων· are coming to naught;

Among the mature, however, we speak a message of wisdom—but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.

Here: 'Being put out of action.' The tense says it is happening now, and the form says something is done to them: God is stripping these rulers of their power. They are not simply fading away on their own.

1 Corinthians 6:13 καταργήσει. will destroy.

“Food for the stomach and the stomach for food,” but God will destroy them both. The body is not intended for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

Here: Future tense: at the end of the age God will put belly and food out of action and make them obsolete. It is one of Paul's favourite words for what passes away when the age to come arrives.

1 Corinthians 13:8 καταργηθήσονται· καταργηθήσεται. they will be abated;, it will be abated.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed.

Here: 'They will be put out of action' or 'retired'. The verb pictures something set idle because it is no longer needed. Paul repeats it in verses 10 and 11 ('the partial will be done away'; 'I put away childish things').

1 Corinthians 13:10 καταργηθήσεται. will be done away.

but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away.

Here: "Will be put out of action / made obsolete." It is future and passive: the partial does not fade away by itself but is retired once the whole arrives. It repeats the verb used of prophecy and knowledge in v. 8, and v. 11 picks it up again ("I set aside childish things").

1 Corinthians 13:11 κατήργηκα I have done away with

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways.

Here: Perfect tense: 'I have put out of action, and they stay retired'. This is the same verb used in vv. 8 and 10 for prophecies, knowledge and 'the partial' being done away with. The child's ways have been made obsolete the way present gifts will be.

1 Corinthians 15:24 καταργήσῃ He may have annulled

Then the end will come, when He hands over the kingdom to God the Father after He has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power.

Here: Aorist subjunctive: 'when he has put out of action'. The rival powers are stripped of their power to act and rule. The focus is on taking away their effectiveness, not on blowing them to pieces.

1 Corinthians 15:26 καταργεῖται to be abolished [is]

The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Here: Present passive: 'is being put out of action / is abolished'. It is the same verb Paul has just used for the abolishing of 'every rule and every authority and power' (v. 24). God is the unstated one doing it. The present tense describes a future event as vividly certain, and possibly also as already under way (see debates).

2 Corinthians 3:7 καταργουμένην, is fading,

Now if the ministry of death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at the face of Moses because of its fleeting glory,

Here: A present passive participle: "being rendered inoperative" or "being brought to an end". It describes the glory, not the face. Whether Paul pictures a gradual dimming ("fading") or the glory being set aside and made ineffective is one of the main debates in this passage.

2 Corinthians 3:11 καταργούμενον is fading away

For if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which endures!

2 Corinthians 3:13 καταργουμένου· fading away;

We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at the end of what was fading away.

2 Corinthians 3:14 καταργεῖται, is being removed,

But their minds were closed. For to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant. It has not been lifted, because only in Christ can it be removed.

Here: 'Is being made ineffective' or 'is set aside'. Paul uses the same verb four times in this chapter (vv.7, 11, 13, 14). Whether the subject here is the veil or the old covenant is debated.

Galatians 3:17 καταργῆσαι to nullify

What I mean is this: The law that came 430 years later does not revoke the covenant previously established by God, so as to nullify the promise.

Here: To make something idle and ineffective, so it no longer does any work. If the law annulled the covenant, the promise would be left a dead letter.

Galatians 5:4 κατηργήθητε You are severed

You who are trying to be justified by the law have been severed from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

Here: "You were made void with respect to Christ." Your tie to him stops working, so you are cut loose from him. The aorist tense presents it as a done thing, which gives the sentence its shock. Paul uses the same verb a few lines later for the offence of the cross being "done away with" (5:11).

Galatians 5:11 κατήργηται has been abolished

Now, brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished.

Here: 'Has been rendered inoperative.' The perfect tense describes a finished act with a lasting result, so the cross's power to scandalize would be switched off for good. The same verb appears in 5:4: those seeking righteousness by law 'have been cut off' from Christ.

Ephesians 2:15 καταργήσας, having annulled,

by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and decrees. He did this to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace

Here: Aorist participle (a completed action) giving the means by which Christ made the two one: he put the law's regulating, separating force out of operation. Paul's own word for something being made ineffective, not merely 'ignored'.

2 Thessalonians 2:8 καταργήσει will annul

And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of His mouth and annihilate by the majesty of His arrival.

Here: 'Will put out of action, bring to nothing'. A word Paul uses often for stripping a power of all its force, as with death in 1 Corinthians 15:26.

2 Timothy 1:10 καταργήσαντος having abolished

And now He has revealed this grace through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and illuminated the way to life and immortality through the gospel,

Here: "Having put out of action." Death has been disarmed and stripped of its power. The aorist form presents this as one decisive act already done, so death's defeat is fixed, even though people still die.

Hebrews 2:14 καταργήσῃ He may destroy

Now since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil,

Here: To make something idle or ineffective, to cancel its force. The devil is not wiped out of existence; his grip is broken and his weapon stops working.