noun · feminine
kolasias
Strong’sG2851
chastisement, punishment
stem kolasi-2 times in the New Testamentin 2 of 27 books1 of 10 forms occur
What it means
A plain-English reading of the word, with the lexicons it draws on — Abbott-Smith, Strong's, and Liddell-Scott-Jones — right below it, in full.
AI Summary
κόλασις means punishment, chastisement, or correction - the penalty inflicted on someone for wrongdoing. 124 In the New Testament it refers to divine punishment. 13 Strong's adds that this penal infliction can also amount to torment. 2
Classical usage distinguished this word from a related term, τιμωρία: κόλασις denoted punishment that is disciplinary, aimed at correcting the one who suffers it, while τιμωρία denoted punishment that is penal, aimed at satisfying the one who inflicts it. 13 In later Greek, however, this distinction was not always maintained. 1
Sources: 1 Abbott-Smith 2 Strong's 3 LSJ 4 Dodson. Condensed by anthropic/claude-sonnet-5 on 2026-09-24 — it may still misstate what these say; check them yourself if it matters to you.
The lexicons it was drawn from, in full:
Abbott-Smith — the 1922 lexicon entry, in full
κόλασις, -εως, ἡ,
(< κολάζω), [in LXX: Ez 14:3-7 18:30 44:12, (מִכְשׁוֹל) 43:11, λαμβάνειν τὴν κ. (כּלם ni.); Wi 11:13 16:2, 24 19:4, Je 18:20, II-IV Mac5*;]
SYN.: τιμωρία, requital. Arist. distinguishes between κ. as that which, being disciplinary, has reference to the sufferer, and τ. as that which, being penal, has reference to the satisfaction of him who inflicts (v. Thayer, s.v. κ., and cf. Tr., Syn., § vii). But in late Gk. especially, the distinction is not always maintained (v. reff. in Thayer).
G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, 1922 — public domain. References open in the reader.
Strong’s G2851 — the 1890 definition, and where the word comes from
Saidkol'-as-is
penal infliction
Fromfrom G2849;
King Jamespunishment, torment.
James Strong, Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, 1890 — public domain. The numbers in it link to the entries here.
Liddell-Scott-Jones — the classical dictionary this word appears in
checking the growth of trees, especially almond-trees, Refs 4th c.BC+
2 chastisement, correction, Refs 5th c.BC+; opposed to τιμωρία, Refs 4th c.BC+; of divine retribution, NT+5th c.BC+
H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (9th ed., 1925–1940) — digitised by the Perseus Digital Library and corrected and expanded by Tyndale House, Cambridge, via STEPBible-Data's TFLSJ table, CC BY 4.0. Covers all of Greek literature, not just the Bible.
Translated as
Every occurrence, sorted by the English it was actually given — the evidence for what the word means, not a gloss of it.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), dedicated to the public domain — berean.bible.
Biblang forms
Every form this word takes in Biblang, with the Greek it corresponds to and how often the New Testament uses it.
| Job in the sentence case | one singular | more than one plural |
|---|---|---|
| subject nominative | kolasias | kolasiais |
| object accusative | kolasian2×κόλασιν | kolasiain |
| direct address vocative | kolasiar | kolasiair |
| of, belonging to genitive | kolasiau | kolasiaiu |
| to, for dative | kolasia | kolasiai |
Tinted cells are forms the New Testament never uses, so there is no Greek to show against them — but they are still correct Biblang, built from the slots below like any other.
Why these forms, and no others — the slots that make them
kolasia is this word in every one of its forms. The slots after it make all the rest.
same in every form varies — every value shown
Where it appears
Every verse the word appears in, filed under the form it takes there.
2 occurrences, every one of them listed
kolasian“punishment”objectaccusative singular2×
Matthew 25:46kai apercheli houtois eis kolasian aiōnian, tois de dikaiois eis zōan …… they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
1 John 4:18… balatō ton fobon, hoti tos fobos kolasian echatō, tos de foborōntos ouk teleiotē …… drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. The one who fears has not …