noun · feminine
latreias
Strong’sG2999
service, worship
stem latrei-5 times in the New Testamentin 3 of 27 books4 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
Service in the sense of divine worship — the service or homage rendered to God 123. This is the sense the word carries throughout its New Testament uses 13, and it is likewise the meaning it always bears in the Greek Old Testament, where it consistently refers to service rendered to God 1.
The word can also denote hired service, the ordinary work of a paid laborer, and by extension the routine business or duties of life 13.
Sources: 1 Abbott-Smith 2 Strong's 3 LSJ 4 Dodson. Condensed by anthropic/claude-sonnet-5 on 2026-09-23 — 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
λατρεία, -ας, ἡ
(< λατρεύω, q.v.), [in LXX (always of divine service): Ex 12:25, 26 13:5, Jos 22:27, I Ch 28:13 (עֲבֹדָה), I Mac 1:43 2:19, 22, III Mac 4:14*;]
G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, 1922 — public domain. References open in the reader.
Strong’s G2999 — the 1890 definition, and where the word comes from
Saidlat-ri'-ah
ministration of God, i.e. worship
Fromfrom G3000;
King James(divine) service.
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
the state of a hired labourer, service, Refs 5th c.BC+, etc.: metaphorically, the business or duties of life, Refs 1st c.AD+
2 λ. τοῦ θεοῦ, θεῶν, service to the gods, divine worship, 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 | latreias1×λατρεία | latreiais |
| object accusative | latreian2×λατρείαν | latreiain1×λατρείας |
| direct address vocative | latreiar | latreiair |
| of, belonging to genitive | latreiau1×λατρείας | latreiaiu |
| to, for dative | latreia | latreiai |
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
latreia 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.
5 occurrences, every one of them listed
latreias“service”subjectnominative singular1×
Romans 9:4“service”… diathēkais kai tas nomothesias kai tas latreias kai tais epangeliais,… and the covenants; theirs the giving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises.
latreian“service”objectaccusative singular2×
John 16:2… hina pantos tos apoktenarantos vin dokateia latreian prosferarō to theo.… will think he is offering a service to God.
Romans 12:1… hagian euarestan to theo, tan logikan latreian vu;… which is your spiritual service of worship.
latreiau“worship”of, belonging togenitive singular1×
Hebrews 9:1Echate men oun tas prōtas dikaiōmeim latreiau tem tē hagiem kosmikem.… the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary.
latreiain“ministry”objectaccusative plural1×
Hebrews 9:6“ministry”… dia pantou eiseialō tois hierevois tain latreiain epitelarōntois,… this way, the priests entered regularly …