What Does the Bible Say About Sexual Purity?

1 Corinthians 6:18 ESV / 74 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.

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 57 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 4:3-5 ESV / 48 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 10:13 ESV / 43 helpful votes

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

Matthew 5:28 ESV / 32 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 Thessalonians 4:3 ESV / 23 helpful votes

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

Colossians 3:2 ESV / 19 helpful votes

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

Romans 6:11-14 ESV / 19 helpful votes

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Colossians 3:5 ESV / 18 helpful votes

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

Galatians 5:13 ESV / 17 helpful votes

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Galatians 5:19-21 ESV / 16 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.

Galatians 5:19 ESV / 16 helpful votes

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

James 1:13-14 ESV / 14 helpful votes

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

Romans 12:2 ESV / 14 helpful votes

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 ESV / 13 helpful votes

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

1 Corinthians 6:13 ESV / 13 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.

2 Corinthians 5:10 ESV / 12 helpful votes

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

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 Corinthians 6:9-10 ESV / 12 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.

Romans 13:14 ESV / 12 helpful votes

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

John 8:34 ESV / 12 helpful votes

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

2 Corinthians 7:1 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

Matthew 5:30 ESV / 11 helpful votes

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Proverbs 7:1-27 ESV / 11 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 6:32 ESV / 11 helpful votes

He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself.

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 ESV / 9 helpful votes

“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be enslaved by anything. “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.” ...

Hebrews 4:15-16 ESV / 8 helpful votes

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Job 31:1-3 ESV / 8 helpful votes

“I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin? What would be my portion from God above and my heritage from the Almighty on high? Is not calamity for the unrighteous, and disaster for the workers of iniquity?

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

Galatians 5:1 ESV / 7 helpful votes

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Proverbs 23:13-14 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.

Genesis 2:24 ESV / 6 helpful votes

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

Ephesians 5:3 ESV / 5 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 / 4 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, ...

John 3:16-36 ESV / 4 helpful votes

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. ...

Romans 13:1 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

Bible Verses about Sexual Purity