What Does the Bible Say About Marital Sex?

1 Corinthians 7:1-40 ESV / 95 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 7:9 ESV / 43 helpful votes

But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 30 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 ESV / 18 helpful votes

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Proverbs 3:27 ESV / 17 helpful votes

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.

Ephesians 5:33 ESV / 16 helpful votes

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Genesis 1:28 ESV / 16 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.”

1 Corinthians 6:18 ESV / 15 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 13:4-8 ESV / 14 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 5:28 ESV / 13 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 7:2 ESV / 12 helpful votes

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

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 ESV / 11 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 6:9-11 ESV / 9 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, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 ESV / 9 helpful votes

“If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.

1 John 3:4 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.

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 6:9 ESV / 7 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,

Ephesians 5:31 ESV / 6 helpful votes

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

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.

Philippians 2:5 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

Matthew 19:5 ESV / 5 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’?

Philippians 4:6 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

John 4:15 ESV / 4 helpful votes

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Galatians 5:19 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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

Acts 15:20 ESV / 3 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.

Ephesians 5:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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

1 Corinthians 6:1-20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, ...

Proverbs 3:27-28 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbor, “Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give it”—when you have it with you.

Exodus 22:16-17 ESV / 1 helpful vote

“If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the bride-price for virgins.

29 Bible Verses about Marital Sex