What Does the Bible Say About Chastity?

1 Thessalonians 4:3 ESV / 31 helpful votes

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;

Matthew 5:28 ESV / 25 helpful votes

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

1 Corinthians 7:7-9 ESV / 15 helpful votes

I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

Romans 13:13 ESV / 13 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.

Ephesians 5:3 ESV / 10 helpful votes

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

Exodus 20:14 ESV / 10 helpful votes

“You shall not commit adultery.

1 Corinthians 7:1-40 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. ...

Colossians 3:5 ESV / 7 helpful votes

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

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 ESV / 7 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. 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, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Galatians 5:19-21 ESV / 6 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 7:36 ESV / 5 helpful votes

If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin.

Proverbs 6:25 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;

Proverbs 5:15-21 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love. ...

Proverbs 6:24 ESV / 4 helpful votes

To preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 3 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 Thessalonians 4:7 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.

Ephesians 5:26 ESV / 3 helpful votes

That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,

Galatians 5:23 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

1 Corinthians 9:27 ESV / 3 helpful votes

But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

1 Corinthians 7:26 ESV / 3 helpful votes

I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is.

1 Corinthians 6:13-19 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. ...

Romans 14:23 ESV / 3 helpful votes

But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

Romans 8:28 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 1:26-27 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Proverbs 2:10 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

Job 31:1 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?

Leviticus 20:13 ESV / 3 helpful votes

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Genesis 39:7-20 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master's wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her. But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house, ...

Revelation 14:1-5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless.

1 Corinthians 7:25 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy.

1 Corinthians 7:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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

1 Corinthians 7:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”

1 Corinthians 6:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,

Acts 15:20 ESV / 2 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.

Isaiah 53:1-12 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. ...

Proverbs 31:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings.

Proverbs 7:1-5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you; keep my commandments and live; keep my teaching as the apple of your eye; bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call insight your intimate friend, to keep you from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words.

Proverbs 2:16-22 ESV / 2 helpful votes

So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed; none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life. So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. ...

Proverbs 2:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you,

Ruth 3:6-13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

So she went down to the threshing floor and did just as her mother-in-law had commanded her. And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. Then she came softly and uncovered his feet and lay down. At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet! He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.” And he said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter. You have made this last kindness greater than the first in that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. ...

Exodus 20:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

41 Bible Verses about Chastity