{3} Be not ye therefore partakers with them.

(3) Because we are most ready to follow evil examples, therefore the apostle warns the godly to always remember that the others are but as it were darkness, and that they themselves are as it were light. And therefore the others commit all evils (as men are accustomed to do in the dark), but they ought not to follow their examples, but rather (as the property of the light is) reprove their darkness, and to walk in such a way (having Christ that true light going before them) as it becomes wise men.

People's New Testament

5:7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them. Have no share with them in their sins.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. Here fellowship with wicked workers is forbidden; in Eph 5:11, with their wicked works.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:3-14 Filthy lusts must be rooted out. These sins must be dreaded and detested. Here are not only cautions against gross acts of sin, but against what some may make light of. But these things are so far from being profitable. that they pollute and poison the hearers. Our cheerfulness should show itself as becomes Christians, in what may tend to God's glory. A covetous man makes a god of his money; places that hope, confidence, and delight, in worldly good, which should be in God only. Those who allow themselves, either in the lusts of the flesh or the love of the world, belong not to the kingdom of grace, nor shall they come to the kingdom of glory. When the vilest transgressors repent and believe the gospel, they become children of obedience, from whom God's wrath is turned away. Dare we make light of that which brings down the wrath of God? Sinners, like men in the dark, are going they know not whither, and doing they know not what. But the grace of God wrought a mighty change in the souls of many. Walk as children of light, as having knowledge and holiness. These works of darkness are unfruitful, whatever profit they may boast; for they end in the destruction of the impenitent sinner. There are many ways of abetting, or taking part in the sins of others; by commendation, counsel, consent, or concealment. And if we share with others in their sins, we must expect to share in their plagues. If we do not reprove the sins of others, we have fellowship with them. A good man will be ashamed to speak of what many wicked men are not ashamed to do. We must have not only a sight and a knowledge that sin is sin, and in some measure shameful, but see it as a breach of God's holy law. After the example of prophets and apostles, we should call on those asleep and dead in sin, to awake and arise, that Christ may give them light.