What Does the Bible Say About Dating?

2 Timothy 2:22 ESV / 300 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.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV / 235 helpful votes

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 15:33 ESV / 205 helpful votes

Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”

Song of Solomon 2:7 ESV / 200 helpful votes

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.

2 Corinthians 6:14 ESV / 176 helpful votes

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

1 Corinthians 6:18 ESV / 160 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.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 ESV / 133 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, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God;

Proverbs 18:22 ESV / 102 helpful votes

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

Jeremiah 29:11 ESV / 99 helpful votes

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

1 Corinthians 7:1-25 ESV / 94 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. ...

2 Corinthians 6:14-15 ESV / 77 helpful votes

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?

James 1:5 ESV / 76 helpful votes

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

Proverbs 19:2 ESV / 76 helpful votes

Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.

Proverbs 16:3 ESV / 61 helpful votes

Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.

Ephesians 5:22-33 ESV / 55 helpful votes

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ...

Ephesians 5:3 ESV / 52 helpful votes

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

1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV / 51 helpful votes

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 6:13 ESV / 50 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.

Proverbs 4:23 ESV / 50 helpful votes

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

1 Timothy 4:12 ESV / 49 helpful votes

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

1 Corinthians 7:32-35 ESV / 41 helpful votes

I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

Proverbs 15:22 ESV / 40 helpful votes

Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.

Matthew 19:5 ESV / 33 helpful votes

And said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?

Romans 12:10 ESV / 32 helpful votes

Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

Proverbs 31:3 ESV / 30 helpful votes

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

1 Corinthians 7:28 ESV / 24 helpful votes

But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that.

Proverbs 31:30 ESV / 24 helpful votes

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

Ephesians 4:1-32 ESV / 23 helpful votes

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ...

1 Corinthians 7:39 ESV / 22 helpful votes

A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.

1 Timothy 5:2 ESV / 21 helpful votes

Older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 ESV / 20 helpful votes

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

Matthew 6:24-34 ESV / 19 helpful votes

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ...

Proverbs 28:18 ESV / 18 helpful votes

Whoever walks in integrity will be delivered, but he who is crooked in his ways will suddenly fall.

1 Peter 4:8 ESV / 17 helpful votes

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

Proverbs 24:7 ESV / 17 helpful votes

Wisdom is too high for a fool; in the gate he does not open his mouth.

Deuteronomy 7:3-4 ESV / 17 helpful votes

You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.

1 John 2:16 ESV / 16 helpful votes

For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world.

Matthew 6:33 ESV / 15 helpful votes

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

1 Corinthians 7:32-34 ESV / 14 helpful votes

I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.

Proverbs 10:10-31 ESV / 13 helpful votes

Whoever winks the eye causes trouble, but a babbling fool will come to ruin. The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence. Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. On the lips of him who has understanding, wisdom is found, but a rod is for the back of him who lacks sense. The wise lay up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near. ...

1 Thessalonians 5:22 ESV / 12 helpful votes

Abstain from every form of evil.

Matthew 6:19-34 ESV / 12 helpful votes

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! ...

Genesis 2:18 ESV / 12 helpful votes

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

1 Timothy 5:1-2 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.

1 Corinthians 7:25 ESV / 11 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.

Hebrews 13:17 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

1 Corinthians 7:1 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.”

Matthew 6:23 ESV / 9 helpful votes

But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

Matthew 4:4 ESV / 9 helpful votes

But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Proverbs 29:3 ESV / 9 helpful votes

He who loves wisdom makes his father glad, but a companion of prostitutes squanders his wealth.

Psalm 32:8 ESV / 9 helpful votes

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

Exodus 20:12 ESV / 9 helpful votes

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

John 16:33 ESV / 8 helpful votes

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

1 Timothy 1:1-20 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, To Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. ...

Proverbs 27:12 ESV / 6 helpful votes

The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.

1 Corinthians 6:13-14 ESV / 5 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.

Romans 8:32 ESV / 4 helpful votes

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Bible Verses about Dating