What Does the Bible Say About Witholding Sex In Marriage?

1 Corinthians 7:3-5 ESV / 31 helpful votes

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.

Ephesians 5:25 ESV / 20 helpful votes

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

1 Corinthians 7:2-5 ESV / 16 helpful votes

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.

Ephesians 5:22 ESV / 14 helpful votes

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

1 Corinthians 7:1-40 ESV / 13 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 Timothy 3:2 ESV / 10 helpful votes

Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 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.

Matthew 5:28 ESV / 9 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.

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 8 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 Corinthians 7:2 ESV / 8 helpful votes

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

Luke 16:18 ESV / 8 helpful votes

“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.

Ephesians 5:3 ESV / 7 helpful votes

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

1 Corinthians 6:9 ESV / 6 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,

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.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 ESV / 5 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;

Ephesians 5:21 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Proverbs 6:29 ESV / 5 helpful votes

So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife; none who touches her will go unpunished.

1 Corinthians 7:5 ESV / 4 helpful votes

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 7:4-5 ESV / 4 helpful votes

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 7:3 ESV / 4 helpful votes

The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband.

1 Corinthians 7:1-7 ESV / 4 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. ...

Mark 10:2-12 ESV / 4 helpful votes

And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ...

Matthew 5:27 ESV / 4 helpful votes

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

Proverbs 5:1-23 ESV / 4 helpful votes

My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol; ...

2 Peter 2:14 ESV / 3 helpful votes

They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children!

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV / 3 helpful votes

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV / 3 helpful votes

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 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; ...

1 Corinthians 7:15 ESV / 3 helpful votes

But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.

Matthew 5:32 ESV / 3 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.

Malachi 2:16 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

Proverbs 6:32 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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

Leviticus 20:13 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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.

Leviticus 18:22 ESV / 3 helpful votes

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

Genesis 38:1-30 ESV / 3 helpful votes

It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua. He took her and went in to her, and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er. She conceived again and bore a son, and she called his name Onan. Yet again she bore a son, and she called his name Shelah. Judah was in Chezib when she bore him. ...

Genesis 29:1-35 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east. As he looked, he saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep lying beside it, for out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone on the well's mouth was large, and when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place over the mouth of the well. Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where do you come from?” They said, “We are from Haran.” He said to them, “Do you know Laban the son of Nahor?” They said, “We know him.” ...

Genesis 1:26-28 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 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 Timothy 5:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander.

1 Timothy 5:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry

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 7:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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.

1 Corinthians 7:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”

1 Corinthians 6:15-16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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.”

Mark 10:11-12 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

Matthew 19:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

Amos 1:1-15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. And he said: “The Lord roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the top of Carmel withers.” Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron. So I will send a fire upon the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the strongholds of Ben-hadad. I will break the gate-bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitants from the Valley of Aven, and him who holds the scepter from Beth-eden; and the people of Syria shall go into exile to Kir,” says the Lord. ...

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man's wife, and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

Leviticus 18:23 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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.

47 Bible Verses about Witholding Sex In Marriage

1 Corinthians 7:3-5 ESV / 31 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ephesians 5:25 ESV / 20 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:2-5 ESV / 16 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ephesians 5:22 ESV / 14 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:1-40 ESV / 13 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Timothy 3:2 ESV / 10 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 ESV / 9 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 5:28 ESV / 9 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:2 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Luke 16:18 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ephesians 5:3 ESV / 7 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 6:9 ESV / 6 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 2:24 ESV / 6 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ephesians 5:21 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Proverbs 6:29 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:5 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:4-5 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:3 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:1-7 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Mark 10:2-12 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 5:27 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Proverbs 5:1-23 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Peter 2:14 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:15 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 5:32 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Malachi 2:16 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Proverbs 6:32 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Leviticus 20:13 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Leviticus 18:22 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 38:1-30 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 29:1-35 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 1:26-28 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Timothy 5:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Timothy 5:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:39 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 6:15-16 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Mark 10:11-12 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 19:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Amos 1:1-15 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Leviticus 18:23 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Suggest a Verse

Enter a Verse Reference (e.g., John 3:16-17)