<p>5:6 <i>But she that gives herself to pleasure is dead while she lives- </i>See on :3. I have suggested that the younger widows were acting similarly to the priestess 'mediators' of the Diana cult from which they had come out. They were in serious sin, and although they had the name of the living Jesus, they were spiritually dead, in anticipation of the condemnation to death they would receive unless they repented. Eph. 4:17,18 was written to the same Ephesians, and urges them to &quot;<i>No longer</i> walk as the Gentiles walk... alienated from the life of God&quot;, that is, dead. Eph. 5:14 makes the same appeal to these Ephesians- to awake spiritually out of the sleep of death.</p>