The features of adultery in the Bible revolve around the consequences and teachings associated with this sinful act. One of the main features is the clear prohibition of adultery through the Ten Commandments, specifically the commandment which states, “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). This commandment establishes the sanctity of marriage and highlights
Adultery is a concept that has carried moral and ethical weight across cultures and religions throughout history. In the Bible, adultery is not only considered a violation of marital fidelity but also a transgression with profound moral and spiritual implications. In this blog post, we will explore the biblical perspective on adultery, its consequences, and the spiritual lessons it imparts.
Churchgist will give you all you ask on Defining Adultery in the Bible, What does the Bible say about adultery, Understanding the Moral and Spiritual Implications and so much more.
Defining Adultery in the Bible:
In the Bible, adultery is primarily defined as a sexual relationship or sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than their spouse. It is explicitly forbidden in the Ten Commandments: “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14, ESV).
Adultery in the Old Testament:
- Consequences of Adultery: The Old Testament contains various accounts highlighting the grave consequences of adultery. In the story of David and Bathsheba, King David’s adultery led to sin, suffering, and the death of their child (2 Samuel 11-12).
- Prophetic Metaphor: The prophets often used the metaphor of adultery to describe Israel’s unfaithfulness to God. The people’s idolatry and disobedience were likened to the unfaithfulness of a spouse (Ezekiel 16, Jeremiah 3).
- Legal Punishment: Under the Mosaic Law, adultery was punishable by death (Leviticus 20:10). These laws were meant to maintain the sanctity of marriage and discourage infidelity.
Adultery in the New Testament:
- Jesus’ Teaching: In the New Testament, Jesus addressed the issue of adultery in His teachings. He emphasized not only the physical act but also the condition of the heart, condemning lustful desires (Matthew 5:27-28).
- The Woman Caught in Adultery: The story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11) showcases Jesus’ compassion and forgiveness. He challenged the accusers and offered the woman forgiveness with the instruction to “sin no more.”
Moral and Spiritual Implications:
- Violating Trust: Adultery shatters the trust and commitment within a marriage, causing emotional and psychological distress to both partners.
- Spiritual Implications: Adultery carries spiritual implications as it represents unfaithfulness and a breach of covenant, both in human relationships and in our relationship with God.
- Restoration and Forgiveness: The Bible teaches that, while adultery is a serious sin, there is room for repentance, forgiveness, and restoration. The story of the woman caught in adultery demonstrates Jesus’ willingness to offer forgiveness and a chance for a fresh start.
What does the Bible say about adultery?
The word infidelity is etymologically connected with the word contaminate, and that signifies “to deliver something more unfortunate in quality by adding another substance.” Infidelity is the debasement of marriage by the option of a third individual. Infidelity is deliberate sexual movement between a wedded individual and somebody other than their companion.
The Book of scriptures starts its showing on marriage with the example of Adam and Eve: one man and one lady, a couple, joined by God (Beginning 2:24, Imprint 10:7-9). Infidelity is prohibited by the seventh edict: “You will not commit infidelity” (Mass migration 20:14). The way that the preclusion is just expressed with no great reason demonstrates that the significance of infidelity was surely known at the time Moses gave the law. Sacred writing is predictable in the preclusion against infidelity.
Despite the clearness of the first example of marriage and the restriction against infidelity, corrupt mankind has created ways of endeavoring to obscure the lines of profound quality.
Polygamy is one way the forbiddance against infidelity has been somewhat evaded. Polygamy isn’t actually infidelity, despite the fact that it corrupts God’s unique arrangement for marriage. In the Hebrew Scripture, polygamy was permitted by God however never supported by Him. Polygamy was not viewed as infidelity in light of the fact that, albeit a third individual (or maybe a fourth, fifth, and so on) was added to the marriage, the extra ladies were legitimately remembered for the marriage. A polygamist who participated in sexual movement with somebody other than his legitimate spouses was all the while committing infidelity. Since polygamy is by and large unlawful in present day nations today, no third individual can be lawfully added to a marriage.
Separation and remarriage is one more way that the restriction against infidelity has been evaded. In the event that a wedded man engages in extramarital relations, he is committing infidelity. Be that as it may, on the off chance that he separates from his significant other and weds the other lady, he keeps up with his “lawful” balance. In most present day cultures, this has turned into the standard.
Jesus puts both of these “techniques” to rest: “Any individual who separates from his better half and weds another lady commits infidelity” (Luke 16:18). Also, “Any individual who separates from his significant other and weds another lady commits infidelity against her. Furthermore, assuming she separates from her better half and weds another man, she commits infidelity” (Imprint 10:11-12). As indicated by Jesus, separate doesn’t avoid the denial against infidelity. On the off chance that a wedded man sees another lady, wants her physically, divorces his better half, and weds the other lady, he actually commits infidelity. Since the marriage bond is expected to endure forever, separate doesn’t set one free from the obligation to be dedicated to the first life partner. (On a connected note, we perceive that at times Sacred text permits separation, and, when separation is permitted, remarriage is likewise permitted without being thought of as two-faced.)
Jesus conveyed the disallowance against infidelity significantly farther than the Mosaic Regulation: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You will not commit infidelity.’ However I let you know that any individual who takes a gander at a lady obscenely has previously dedicated infidelity with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28). Thus, regardless of whether a man attempts to “lawfully” keep away from infidelity by looking for separate, he is as of now liable in view of the desire in his heart that drove him to such measures. In the event that a man “legitimately” carries one more lady into the marriage, making it a polygamous marriage, he is as yet at fault for infidelity as a result of the desire in his heart that persuaded him to wed another spouse. Regardless of whether a man or lady just enjoys lecherous contemplations (erotic entertainment is particularly dangerous), then the individual is committing infidelity regardless of whether no extramarital actual contact at any point happens. This clarification by Jesus dodges the subtleties about “how far is all excessively far” with somebody other than a companion, and it maintains a strategic distance from the need to characterize what “sex” truly is. Desire, not sex, is the limit of infidelity.
Precepts 6 gives a few harsh admonitions against committing infidelity, giving “rectification and guidance . . . keeping you from your neighbor’s significant other” (sections 23-24). According to solomon,
“Try not to desire in that frame of mind after her magnificence
or on the other hand let her spellbind you with her eyes. . . .
One more man’s better half goes after your actual life.
Could a man at any point scoop fire into his lap
without his garments being singed?
Might a man at any point stroll on hot coals
without his feet being seared?
So is he who lays down with another man’s better half;
nobody who contacts her will slip through the cracks” (sections 25-29).
Infidelity is dangerous troublesome and brings God’s ramifications. “A man who commits infidelity has pretty much no clue; whoever does so obliterates himself” (Precepts 6:32; cf. 1 Corinthians 6:18 and Jews 13:4).
An individual who lives in unrepentant infidelity gives proof that the person in question has not really come to know Christ. Be that as it may, infidelity isn’t unforgiveable, by the same token. Any wrongdoing that a Christian perpetrates can be pardoned when the Christian atones, and any transgression carried out by an unbeliever can be excused when that individual comes to Christ in confidence. “Do you not realize that transgressors won’t acquire the realm of God? Try not to be misled: Neither the physically shameless nor misguided worshipers nor miscreants . . . will acquire the realm of God. Some of you were also, that. In any case, you were washed, you were blessed, you were legitimate for the sake of the Ruler Jesus Christ and by the Soul of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Notice that in the Corinthian church there were previous philanderers, yet they had been washed clean from their transgression, blessed, and supported.
Understanding the Moral and Spiritual Implications
Adultery
Exodus 20:14 ESV / 4,503 helpful votes
“You shall not commit adultery.
Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 4,381 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.
Matthew 19:9 ESV / 3,414 helpful votes
And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
Proverbs 6:32 ESV / 3,410 helpful votes
He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself.
Matthew 5:27-28 ESV / 3,214 helpful votes
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Matthew 5:28 ESV / 2,696 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.
Leviticus 20:10 ESV / 2,615 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.
1 Corinthians 6:18 ESV / 2,558 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.
Luke 16:18 ESV / 2,543 helpful votes
“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
Matthew 5:32 ESV / 2,242 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.
Deuteronomy 22:22 ESV / 2,167 helpful votes
“If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
1 Corinthians 6:9 ESV / 1,536 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,
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 ESV / 1,532 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.
1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV / 1,525 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 15:19 ESV / 1,509 helpful votes
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
Mark 10:11-12 ESV / 1,420 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.”
Malachi 2:16 ESV / 1,368 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.”
Deuteronomy 5:18 ESV / 1,361 helpful votes
“‘And you shall not commit adultery.
Galatians 5:19 ESV / 1,303 helpful votes
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,
Romans 7:2-3 ESV / 1,300 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. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
Jeremiah 3:8 ESV / 1,263 helpful votes
She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.
Ezekiel 23:37 ESV / 1,247 helpful votes
For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. With their idols they have committed adultery, and they have even offered up to them for food the children whom they had borne to me.
1 Corinthians 7:1-40 ESV / 1,218 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. …
John 8:4-11 ESV / 1,202 helpful votes
They said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. …
Romans 7:3 ESV / 1,197 helpful votes
Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
Matthew 5:31-32 ESV / 1,197 helpful votes
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 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.
Proverbs 6:24-29 ESV / 1,179 helpful votes
To preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread, but a married woman hunts down a precious life. Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? …
James 4:17 ESV / 1,153 helpful votes
So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
Matthew 5:27 ESV / 1,106 helpful votes
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’
Leviticus 18:20 ESV / 1,084 helpful votes
And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her.
Mark 10:11 ESV / 1,033 helpful votes
And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her,
1 Corinthians 7:2 ESV / 1,032 helpful votes
But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.
Exodus 20:17 ESV / 975 helpful votes
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
Ephesians 5:5 ESV / 946 helpful votes
For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
John 8:10-11 ESV / 943 helpful votes
Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”]]
Luke 18:18-20 ESV / 940 helpful votes
And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’”
Jeremiah 13:27 ESV / 929 helpful votes
I have seen your abominations, your adulteries and neighings, your lewd whorings, on the hills in the field. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will it be before you are made clean?”
1 Corinthians 7:15 ESV / 912 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.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 ESV / 866 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;
Galatians 5:19-21 ESV / 844 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.
Revelation 21:8 ESV / 838 helpful votes
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
Revelation 2:22 ESV / 823 helpful votes
Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works,
1 Corinthians 5:1 ESV / 803 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.
Luke 1:37 ESV / 787 helpful votes
For nothing will be impossible with God.”
Romans 13:9 ESV / 780 helpful votes
For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Romans 6:23 ESV / 774 helpful votes
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Hosea 4:2 ESV / 766 helpful votes
There is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
Romans 7:2 ESV / 758 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.
Mark 10:12 ESV / 749 helpful votes
And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Leviticus 20:1-27 ESV / 747 helpful votes
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech. …
1 Corinthians 7:10-11 ESV / 741 helpful votes
To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.
1 Corinthians 6:15-16 ESV / 736 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.”
Matthew 5:27-30 ESV / 730 helpful votes
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 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.
Jeremiah 7:9 ESV / 720 helpful votes
Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known,
Jeremiah 5:7 ESV / 714 helpful votes
“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me and have sworn by those who are no gods. When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of whores.
Jeremiah 29:23 ESV / 710 helpful votes
Because they have done an outrageous thing in Israel, they have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and they have spoken in my name lying words that I did not command them. I am the one who knows, and I am witness, declares the Lord.’”
2 Samuel 11:2-5 ESV / 705 helpful votes
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.”
Colossians 3:5 ESV / 698 helpful votes
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
1 John 1:9 ESV / 684 helpful votes
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
James 4:4 ESV / 667 helpful votes
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Genesis 2:24 ESV / 658 helpful votes
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Jeremiah 3:9 ESV / 646 helpful votes
Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree.
Deuteronomy 22:22-24 ESV / 642 helpful votes
“If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel. “If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
Revelation 1:1-20 ESV / 635 helpful votes
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood …
Mark 7:21 ESV / 635 helpful votes
For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,
1 Corinthians 10:8 ESV / 626 helpful votes
We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.
Mark 7:20-23 ESV / 616 helpful votes
And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 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.”
2 Samuel 12:13 ESV / 606 helpful votes
David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.
Jeremiah 23:14 ESV / 603 helpful votes
But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil; all of them have become like Sodom to me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.”
1 Corinthians 6:13 ESV / 602 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 5:18-23 ESV / 597 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. Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. …
Mark 10:19 ESV / 596 helpful votes
You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’”
Deuteronomy 24:1 ESV / 594 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,
2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV / 568 helpful votes
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Hosea 4:13 ESV / 566 helpful votes
They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the whore, and your brides commit adultery.
Hosea 4:14 ESV / 558 helpful votes
I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.
Matthew 5:31 ESV / 557 helpful votes
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’
1 Thessalonians 4:3-4 ESV / 553 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,
1 Corinthians 6:11 ESV / 553 helpful votes
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.
Proverbs 22:14 ESV / 549 helpful votes
The mouth of forbidden women is a deep pit; he with whom the Lord is angry will fall into it.
2 Corinthians 12:21 ESV / 542 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.
Jude 1:7 ESV / 539 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.
Hebrews 4:15-16 ESV / 537 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.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV / 524 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.
Luke 18:20 ESV / 522 helpful votes
You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’”
1 Corinthians 7:39 ESV / 516 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.
Malachi 3:5 ESV / 507 helpful votes
“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.
1 Corinthians 7:11 ESV / 502 helpful votes
(but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.
Ephesians 5:33 ESV / 457 helpful votes
However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Proverbs 2:16-19 ESV / 450 helpful votes
So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed; none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.
Revelation 17:2 ESV / 449 helpful votes
With whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.”
Ephesians 4:19 ESV / 446 helpful votes
They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
Ezekiel 23:43 ESV / 429 helpful votes
“Then I said of her who was worn out by adultery, ‘Now they will continue to use her for a whore, even her!’
Jeremiah 9:2 ESV / 417 helpful votes
Oh that I had in the desert a travelers’ lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a company of treacherous men.
Revelation 2:20-22 ESV / 399 helpful votes
But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works,
Romans 12:2 ESV / 383 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.
John 8:3 ESV / 378 helpful votes
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst
Matthew 19:4-6 ESV / 372 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.”
Malachi 2:14-16 ESV / 358 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. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. “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.”
2 Samuel 11:2-4 ESV / 355 helpful votes
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.
Conclusion:
Adultery, as depicted in the Bible, is not merely a physical transgression but a breach of trust and a violation of spiritual and moral principles. It teaches us about the importance of faithfulness, integrity, and the consequences of unfaithfulness in both marital and spiritual relationships. While the Bible underscores the seriousness of adultery, it also holds the promise of forgiveness and restoration, emphasizing the importance of grace and redemption in the face of human frailty.
