Marriage

Enjoy life with your beloved wife all the days of the fleeting life that God has given you under the sun—all your fleeting days. For this is your portion in life and in your labor under the sun.

⁵ But Jesus told them, “Moses wrote this commandment for you because of your hardness of heart.

⁶ However, from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’

⁷ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,

⁸ and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh.

⁹ Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

²² Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

²³ For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior.

²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

⁴ Jesus answered, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’

⁵ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?

⁶ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

⁷ “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses order a man to give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

⁸ Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of your hardness of heart; but it was not this way from the beginning.

⁹ Now I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery.”

¹⁸ Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

¹⁹ Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

²⁸ In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

²⁹ Indeed, no one ever hated his own body, but he nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.

³⁰ For we are members of His body.

³¹ “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

³² This mystery is profound, but I am speaking about Christ and the church.

³³ Nevertheless, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.

¹³ And this is another thing you do: You cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and groaning, because He no longer regards your offerings or receives them gladly from your hands.

¹⁴ Yet you ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have broken faith, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

¹⁵ Has not the LORD made them one, having a portion of the Spirit? And why one? Because He seeks godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.

¹⁶ “For I hate divorce,” says the LORD, the God of Israel. “He who divorces his wife covers his garment with violence,” says the LORD of Hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not break faith.

⁷ I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.

⁸ Now to the unmarried and widows I say this: It is good for them to remain unmarried, as I am.

⁹ But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

¹⁰ To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband.

¹¹ But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

¹² To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If a brother has an unbelieving wife and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her.

⁵ For this is how the holy women of the past adorned themselves. They put their hope in God and were submissive to their husbands,

⁶ just as Sarah obeyed Abraham and called him lord. And you are her children if you do what is right and refuse to give way to fear.

⁷ Husbands, in the same way, treat your wives with consideration as a delicate vessel, and with honor as fellow heirs of the gracious gift of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not commit adultery.

¹⁵ Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.

¹⁶ Why should your springs flow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?

¹⁷ Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.

¹⁸ May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:

¹⁹ A loving doe, a graceful fawn— may her breasts satisfy you always; may you be captivated by her love forever.

²⁰ Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger?

He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD.

¹ Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good to abstain from sexual relations.

² But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.

³ The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.

⁴ The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife.

⁵ Do not deprive each other, except by mutual consent and for a time, so you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you through your lack of self-control.

⁶ I say this as a concession, not as a command.

³⁹ A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, as long as he belongs to the Lord.

⁴⁰ In my judgment, however, she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

¹ Wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your husbands, so that even if they refuse to believe the word, they will be won over without words by the behavior of their wives

² when they see your pure and reverent demeanor.

³ Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair or gold jewelry or fine clothes,

⁴ but from the inner disposition of your heart, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in God’s sight.

⁹ If my heart has been enticed by my neighbor’s wife, or I have lurked at his door,

¹⁰ then may my own wife grind grain for another, and may other men sleep with her.

¹¹ For that would be a heinous crime, an iniquity to be judged.

¹² For it is a fire that burns down to Abaddon; it would root out my entire harvest.

Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

²¹ So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he slept, He took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the area with flesh.

²² And from the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man, He made a woman and brought her to him.

²³ And the man said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man she was taken.”

²⁴ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

²⁵ And the man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.

And Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah and took Rebekah as his wife. And Isaac loved her and was comforted after his mother’s death.

² So Abraham instructed the chief servant of his household, who managed all he owned, “Place your hand under my thigh,

³ and I will have you swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I am dwelling,

⁴ but will go to my country and my kindred to take a wife for my son Isaac.”

Since Jacob loved Rachel, he answered, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”

Then some Pharisees came and tested Him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”

These women were from the nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, for surely they will turn your hearts after their gods.” Yet Solomon clung to these women in love.

¹⁶ “Son of man, behold, I am about to take away the desire of your eyes with a fatal blow. But you must not mourn or weep or let your tears flow.

¹⁷ Groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead. Put on your turban and strap your sandals on your feet; do not cover your lips or eat the bread of mourners.”

¹⁸ So I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. And the next morning I did as I had been commanded.

So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. “Do not take a wife from the Canaanite women,” he commanded.

When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, He told him, “Go, take a prostitute as your wife and have children of adultery, because this land is flagrantly prostituting itself by departing from the LORD.”

Then I said to her, “You must live with me for many days; you must not be promiscuous or belong to another, and I will do the same for you.”

² So he returned and told his father and mother, “I have seen a daughter of the Philistines in Timnah. Now get her for me as a wife.”

³ But his father and mother replied, “Can’t you find a young woman among your relatives or among any of our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?” But Samson told his father, “Get her for me, for she is pleasing to my eyes.”

¹⁷ “I have no husband,” the woman replied. Jesus said to her, “You are correct to say that you have no husband.

¹⁸ In fact, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. You have spoken truthfully.”

Then Job’s wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!”

My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own family.

“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses order a man to give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

¹¹ “We are witnesses,” said the elders and all the people at the gate. “May the LORD make the woman entering your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you be prosperous in Ephrathah and famous in Bethlehem.

¹² And may your house become like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring the LORD will give you by this young woman.”

¹³ So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And when he had relations with her, the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.

Now about virgins, I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy.

Have we no right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas?

Now Saul’s daughter Michal loved David, and when this was reported to Saul, it pleased him.

His name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband, a Calebite, was harsh and evil in his dealings.