What Does the Bible Say About Abstinence?

1 Thessalonians 4:3-4 ESV / 20 helpful votes

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor,

2 Timothy 2:22 ESV / 18 helpful votes

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

Colossians 3:5 ESV / 18 helpful votes

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 12 helpful votes

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

1 Corinthians 6:18 ESV / 12 helpful votes

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Galatians 5:19 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,

1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,

Galatians 5:19-21 ESV / 8 helpful votes

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Peter 2:11 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

1 Corinthians 7:2 ESV / 6 helpful votes

But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

Romans 13:13 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy.

Acts 15:20 ESV / 5 helpful votes

But should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.

Proverbs 31:30 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Ephesians 5:3 ESV / 4 helpful votes

But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.

2 Corinthians 12:21 ESV / 4 helpful votes

I fear that when I come again my God may humble me before you, and I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced.

Isaiah 5:11-12 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them! They have lyre and harp, tambourine and flute and wine at their feasts, but they do not regard the deeds of the Lord, or see the work of his hands.

Genesis 1:28 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Jude 1:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Genesis 1:27-28 ESV / 2 helpful votes

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Ephesians 5:18 ESV / 1 helpful vote

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,

Psalm 127:3-5 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

Psalm 104:15 ESV / 1 helpful vote

And wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart.

Judges 13:7 ESV / 1 helpful vote

But he said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. So then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.’”

Judges 13:4 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Therefore be careful and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean,

Numbers 6:3 ESV / 1 helpful vote

He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried.

Bible Verses about Abstinence