Bible word study

Peirasmos (Strong’s G3986): Meaning in the Bible

Peirasmos (πειρασμός) is the Greek word numbered G3986 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as a putting to proof (by experiment (of good), experience (of evil), solicitation, discipline or provocation); by implication, adversity. In the King James Bible it is translated temptation, X try..

• Original wordπειρασμός
• Transliterationpeirasmós
• Pronunciationpi-ras-mos'
• Strong’s numberG3986
• LanguageGreek

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. from G3985;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Peirasmos appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Peirasmos (G3986) stands behind 21 English renderings in 20 verses across 12 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Luke (6), Matthew (2), 1 Corinthians (2).

How the King James Bible renders Peirasmos, by count

• temptation13 of 21 (62 percent)
• temptations5 of 21 (24 percent)
• of temptation2 of 21 (10 percent)
• try1 of 21 (5 percent)

Three places to read Peirasmos

• Matthew 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
• Luke 22:28 Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations.
• Hebrews 3:8 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:

Counts are made at build time from the King James text tagged with Strong’s numbers (eBible.org, public domain). Verses are read from the stored King James text, never typed.

Why the word matters

Every word the biblical writers chose carries weight. Studying Peirasmos in the original Greek lets you read the passages where it appears more carefully, closer to what the first hearers understood, so the meaning is drawn from the text itself rather than from the English alone.

The lexical data on this page comes from the public-domain Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890), a Hebrew and Greek dictionary keyed to the King James Bible. It is a reference tool, not a settled verdict: no single word decides a doctrine, and meaning is finally shaped by how a word is used in its sentences. Read the passages themselves, prayerfully, and in full.

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