What Does the Bible Say About Living Together Before Marriage?

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 103 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.

Genesis 2:24-25 ESV / 48 helpful votes

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 ESV / 46 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;

1 Corinthians 7:1-40 ESV / 46 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. ...

1 Corinthians 7:2 ESV / 34 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 6:18-20 ESV / 26 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.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 ESV / 25 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; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. ...

Ephesians 5:5 ESV / 21 helpful votes

For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Matthew 5:28 ESV / 20 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 6:19-20 ESV / 17 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, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

2 Timothy 2:22 ESV / 16 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 3:16 ESV / 16 helpful votes

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?

1 Thessalonians 4:3 ESV / 12 helpful votes

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

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.

1 Corinthians 7:39 ESV / 10 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.

Matthew 5:32 ESV / 10 helpful votes

But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

John 4:16-18 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

Proverbs 5:18-19 ESV / 9 helpful votes

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.

Revelation 21:8 ESV / 7 helpful votes

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Revelation 14:4 ESV / 6 helpful votes

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,

1 Corinthians 6:13 ESV / 6 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.

Mark 7:21-23 ESV / 6 helpful votes

For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Matthew 19:9 ESV / 5 helpful votes

And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

1 Thessalonians 5:22 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Abstain from every form of evil.

John 16:1 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away.

John 8:34 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

Psalm 119:9 ESV / 3 helpful votes

How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.

1 Corinthians 10:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.

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,

1 Corinthians 5:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife.

Romans 1:29 ESV / 2 helpful votes

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,

Leviticus 18:1-30 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord. ...

Exodus 20:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“You shall not commit adultery.

2 Corinthians 12:21 ESV / 1 helpful vote

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.

Mark 7:21 ESV / 1 helpful vote

For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,

Psalm 145:17-21 ESV / 1 helpful vote

The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them. The Lord preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.

36 Bible Verses about Living Together Before Marriage