What does the Bible say about premarital sex?
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The Bible teaches that sexual intimacy belongs within the covenant of marriage and calls believers to flee sexual immorality, including sex outside marriage. Hebrews 13:4 honors marriage and the marriage bed, while 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 calls Christians to holiness and self-control rather than passionate lust. Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 that our bodies belong to Christ and are temples of the Holy Spirit, so sexual sin is not morally indifferent. Scripture also recognizes marriage as God’s good provision for sexual desire (1 Corinthians 7:2, 8-9). The gospel offers both a clear call to repentance and real forgiveness, cleansing, and strength for chastity through Christ.
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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.
- 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5
[3] For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, [4] that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor, [5] not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don't know God;
- 1 Corinthians 7:2
But, because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.
- 1 Corinthians 6:18-20
[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. [19] Or don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God? You are not your own, [20] for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
- 1 Corinthians 7:8-9
[8] But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am. [9] But if they don't have self-control, let them marry. For it's better to marry than to burn.
- Ephesians 5:3
But sexual immorality, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be mentioned among you, as becomes saints;
- 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.
- Exodus 22:16-17
[16] "If a man entices a virgin who isn't pledged to be married, and lies with her, he shall surely pay a dowry for her to be his wife. [17] If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.
- Jude 1:7
Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, having, in the same way as these, given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.
- 1 Corinthians 5:1
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father's wife.
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