The fifteen works
Galatians 5:19–21 (KJV):
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
The list is fifteen named items plus an open "and such like." Paul groups them roughly:
- Sexual — adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness
- Religious — idolatry, witchcraft
- Relational — hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders
- Bodily — drunkenness, revellings
The grouping is not airtight (the Greek doesn''t mark them as four classes), but the contour is clear. The flesh produces sins of every register — sexual, religious, social, bodily. There is no domain of life the flesh leaves untouched.
Why Paul lists this first
Verse 16 sets up the contrast: "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." The flesh is named as an active production — it fulfils its lust unless restrained. Paul then names what that production looks like (vv. 19–21), then names what the Spirit''s production looks like (vv. 22–23).
The order matters. If Paul named the fruit first, the works of the flesh would read like a warning. By naming the works first, the fruit reads like a deliverance — what the believer is delivered from, then into. The Galatians, slipping back toward law-keeping, are reminded that law-keeping does not address the works of the flesh; only the Spirit does.
Erga vs. karpos — the grammatical key
The flesh produces erga (ἔργα) — works, plural. A fragmentary list. You can have envy without lasciviousness; you can have wrath without idolatry. The flesh''s output is a checklist of failure, items checked independently.
The Spirit produces karpos (καρπός) — fruit, singular. A unity. You cannot have love without joy without peace. The Spirit''s output is integrative — the nine facets either grow together or do not grow.
This grammar is the structural argument of Galatians 5. The works-of-the-flesh side is plural because the flesh''s output is fragmented; the fruit-of-the-Spirit side is singular because the Spirit''s output is unified.
"Such like" — the open-endedness
Paul ends the works-of-the-flesh list with "and such like" — an open category. He does not pretend the fifteen are exhaustive. The Spirit''s list, by contrast, is closed at nine — these are the facets of the one fruit, and Paul does not append "and such like" because the unity does not admit additions.
→ Go deeper: Singularity of fruit vs. plurality of gifts