What does the Bible say about infidelity?

Bible Topic · WEB

The Bible condemns infidelity as a grievous sin against God’s design for marriage, calling husbands and wives to lifelong faithfulness in heart, body, and covenant love. Genesis 2:24 establishes marriage as a one-flesh union, and Hebrews 13:4 honors it as holy before God. Jesus teaches in Matthew 5:28-32 that adultery includes lustful desire and that marital unfaithfulness wounds the covenant deeply. Proverbs 6:26 and 1 Corinthians 6:18 warn of sin’s destructive power, while Romans 7:2 affirms the binding nature of marriage. Yet Scripture also directs the guilty to repentance and faith in Christ, whose grace forgives sinners and renews lives.

Top passages, ranked by readers

Rankings: OpenBible.info Topical Bible (CC BY) · Scripture: World English Bible

  • Hebrews 13:4

    Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled: but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.

  • Isaiah 47:10

    For you have trusted in your wickedness; you have said, None sees me; your wisdom and your knowledge, it has perverted you, and you have said in your heart, I am, and there is none else besides me.

  • Matthew 5:31-32

    [31] "It was also said, 'Whoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorce,' [32] but I tell you that whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries her when she is put away commits adultery.

  • Isaiah 47:11

    Therefore shall evil come on you; you shall not know the dawning of it: and mischief shall fall on you; you shall not be able to put it away: and desolation shall come on you suddenly, which you don't know.

  • Matthew 5:28

    but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.

  • 1 Corinthians 6:18

    Flee sexual immorality! "Every sin that a man does is outside the body," but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

  • Isaiah 29:15

    Woe to those who hide deep their counsel from Yahweh, and whose works are in the dark, and who say, Who sees us? and who knows us?

  • Proverbs 6:26

    For a prostitute reduces you to a piece of bread. The adulteress hunts for your precious life.

  • Genesis 2:24

    Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh.

  • Romans 7:2

    For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband.

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