“Bad company corrupts good character.”

The King James reads "evil communications corrupt good manners." The warning is broader than choosing friends poorly. It includes the talk, teaching, and ideas you let sit in your ears.

The modern paraphrase is not wrong, but it narrows a wide warning into a lesson about picking friends. The King James renders it evil communications corrupt good manners, and communications carries the sense of conversation, association, and the whole traffic of words between people. Paul is quoting a line from a Greek playwright that his readers would have recognized, which is itself worth noticing, and he drops it into the middle of an argument against people in Corinth who were saying there is no resurrection of the dead. That is the evil communication he has in mind. False teaching had gotten comfortable in the congregation, and Paul says plainly, Be not deceived, then follows with Awake to righteousness, and sin not. Read in context the verse is not mainly about the crowd at work or school. It is about what you let be said to you, week after week, until it quietly reshapes how you live.

One word, every week.

Scripture, reflection, and one thing to carry with you.