89 Bible Verses about Staying Pure Before Marriage

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 17 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.

Ephesians 5:3 ESV / 8 helpful votes

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

1 Corinthians 6:18 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.

1 Thessalonians 4:3 ESV / 6 helpful votes

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

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.

Proverbs 5:18-19 ESV / 6 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.

Galatians 5:19 ESV / 5 helpful votes

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

1 Corinthians 7:1-40 ESV / 5 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 6:9 ESV / 5 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,

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.”

Matthew 5:32 ESV / 5 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.

2 Timothy 2:22 ESV / 4 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 Thessalonians 4:3-5 ESV / 4 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;

Acts 15:20 ESV / 4 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.

Matthew 5:28 ESV / 4 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.

Jude 1:7 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Colossians 3:5 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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

2 Corinthians 12:21 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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.

1 Corinthians 10:8 ESV / 3 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 7:2 ESV / 3 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 5:1 ESV / 3 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.

John 8:44 ESV / 3 helpful votes

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Mark 7:21 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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

Matthew 19:4-6 ESV / 3 helpful votes

He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 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’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Exodus 20:14 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“You shall not commit adultery.

1 John 4:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

1 John 3:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

1 Peter 2:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

Hebrews 12:16-17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

That no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.

Titus 2:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,

Titus 2:4-5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

1 Timothy 1:10 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine,

1 Timothy 1:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

1 Thessalonians 4:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 ESV / 2 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. ...

Colossians 3:18-19 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

Ephesians 6:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Galatians 5:19-21 ESV / 2 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 13:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV / 2 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.

1 Corinthians 7:39 ESV / 2 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 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV / 2 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.

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 ESV / 2 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 Corinthians 6:9-11 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, 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.

1 Corinthians 4:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

Romans 13:13-14 ESV / 2 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. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Romans 10:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Romans 10:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 9:1-33 ESV / 2 helpful votes

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. ...

Romans 8:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

Romans 7:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.

Romans 1:24 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,

Acts 15:29 ESV / 2 helpful votes

That you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

Acts 2:38 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

John 16:33 ESV / 2 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.”

John 4:16-18 ESV / 2 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.”

John 3:16-17 ESV / 2 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.

John 3:1-36 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ...

Luke 10:10-13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

Mark 7:21-23 ESV / 2 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 24:1-51 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. ...

Matthew 19:28 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Matthew 18:1-35 ESV / 2 helpful votes

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, ...

Matthew 15:19 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

Matthew 5:27 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’

Matthew 5:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Malachi 2:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

Hosea 1:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”

Ezekiel 16:49-50 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.

Proverbs 31:10 ESV / 2 helpful votes

An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.

Proverbs 22:6 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 19:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Discipline your son, for there is hope; do not set your heart on putting him to death.

Proverbs 18:22 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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

Proverbs 13:24 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

Proverbs 12:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones.

2 Kings 23:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah.

1 Kings 14:24 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And there were also male cult prostitutes in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations that the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.

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

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

Deuteronomy 24:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“When a man is newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be liable for any other public duty. He shall be free at home one year to be happy with his wife whom he has taken.

Deuteronomy 22:13-21 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her, saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,’ then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate. And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her; and behold, he has accused her of misconduct, saying, “I did not find in your daughter evidence of virginity.” And yet this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.’ And they shall spread the cloak before the elders of the city. ...

Leviticus 20:10-16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. If a man lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. 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. If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you. ...

Leviticus 18:19-23 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness. And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor's wife and so make yourself unclean with her. You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion.

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 22:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“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.

Genesis 19:1-38 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the town square.” But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” ...

Genesis 2:24 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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

Genesis 2:22-24 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Genesis 2:18 ESV / 2 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.”

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