What Does the Bible Say About Abstinence?

1 Thessalonians 4:3-4 ESV / 75 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,

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 50 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 / 48 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.

2 Timothy 2:22 ESV / 36 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 / 28 helpful votes

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

Galatians 5:19-21 ESV / 22 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 Corinthians 6:19 ESV / 20 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,

1 Peter 2:11 ESV / 14 helpful votes

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

Proverbs 31:30 ESV / 14 helpful votes

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

1 Corinthians 7:2 ESV / 11 helpful votes

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

Galatians 5:19 ESV / 9 helpful votes

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

2 Corinthians 12:21 ESV / 8 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.

Ephesians 5:3 ESV / 6 helpful votes

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

Romans 13:13 ESV / 6 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 / 6 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.

Romans 8:1 ESV / 5 helpful votes

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Matthew 5:8 ESV / 5 helpful votes

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Jude 1:7 ESV / 4 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.

Psalm 127:3-5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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.

Genesis 1:28 ESV / 2 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.”

20 Bible Verses about Abstinence