First Letter to the Corinthians 7

¹ Now for the questions about which you wrote. Yes, it is a good thing for a man not to touch a woman;

² but since sex is always a danger, let each man have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

³ The husband must give his wife what she has the right to expect, and so too the wife to the husband.

⁴ The wife has no rights over her own body; it is the husband who has them. In the same way, the husband has no rights over his body; the wife has them.

⁵ Do not refuse each other except by mutual consent, and then only for an agreed time, to leave yourselves free for prayer; then come together again in case Satan should take advantage of your weakness to tempt you.

⁶ This is a suggestion, not a rule:

⁷ I should like everyone to be like me, but everybody has his own particular gifts from God, one with a gift for one thing and another with a gift for the opposite.

⁸ There is something I want to add for the sake of widows and those who are not married: it is a good thing for them to stay as they are, like me,

⁹ but if they cannot control the sexual urges, they should get married, since it is better to be married than to be tortured.

¹⁰ For the married I have something to say, and this is not from me but from the Lord: a wife must not leave her husband –

¹¹ or if she does leave him, she must either remain unmarried or else make it up with her husband – nor must a husband send his wife away.

¹² The rest is from me and not from the Lord. If a brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she is content to live with him, he must not send her away;

¹³ and if a woman has an unbeliever for her husband, and he is content to live with her, she must not leave him.

¹⁴ This is because the unbelieving husband is made one with the saints through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made one with the saints through her husband. If this were not so, your children would be unclean, whereas in fact they are holy.

¹⁵ However, if the unbelieving partner does not consent, they may separate; in these circumstances, the brother or sister is not tied: God has called you to a life of peace.

¹⁶ If you are a wife, it may be your part to save your husband, for all you know; if a husband, for all you know, it may be your part to save your wife.

¹⁷ For the rest, what each one has is what the Lord has given him and he should continue as he was when God’s call reached him. This is the ruling that I give in all the churches.

¹⁸ If anyone had already been circumcised at the time of his call, he need not disguise it, and anyone who was uncircumcised at the time of his call need not be circumcised;

¹⁹ because to be circumcised or uncircumcised means nothing: what does matter is to keep the commandments of God.

²⁰ Let everyone stay as he was at the time of his call.

²¹ If, when you were called, you were a slave, do not let this bother you; but if you should have the chance of being free, accept it.

²² A slave, when he is called in the Lord, becomes the Lord’s freedman, and a freeman called in the Lord becomes Christ’s slave.

²³ You have all been bought and paid for; do not be slaves of other men.

²⁴ Each one of you, my brothers, should stay as he was before God at the time of his call.

²⁵ About remaining celibate, I have no directions from the Lord but give my own opinion as one who, by the Lord’s mercy, has stayed faithful.

²⁶ Well then, I believe that in these present times of stress this is right: that it is good for a man to stay as he is.

²⁷ If you are tied to a wife, do not look for freedom; if you are free of a wife, then do not look for one.

²⁸ But if you marry, it is no sin, and it is not a sin for a young girl to get married. They will have their troubles, though, in their married life, and I should like to spare you that.

²⁹ Brothers, this is what I mean: our time is growing short. Those who have wives should live as though they had none,

³⁰ and those who mourn should live as though they had nothing to mourn for; those who are enjoying life should live as though there were nothing to laugh about; those whose life is buying things should live as though they had nothing of their own;

³¹ and those who have to deal with the world should not become engrossed in it. I say this because the world as we know it is passing away.

³² I would like to see you free from all worry. An unmarried man can devote himself to the Lord’s affairs, all he need worry about is pleasing the Lord;

³³ but a married man has to bother about the world’s affairs and devote himself to pleasing his wife:

³⁴ he is torn two ways. In the same way an unmarried woman, like a young girl, can devote herself to the Lord’s affairs; all she need worry about is being holy in body and spirit. The married woman, on the other hand, has to worry about the world’s affairs and devote herself to pleasing her husband.

³⁵ I say this only to help you, not to put a halter round your necks, but simply to make sure that everything is as it should be, and that you give your undivided attention to the Lord.

³⁶ Still, if there is anyone who feels that it would not be fair to his daughter to let her grow too old for marriage, and that he should do something about it, he is free to do as he likes: he is not sinning if there is a marriage.

³⁷ On the other hand, if someone has firmly made his mind up, without any compulsion and in complete freedom of choice, to keep his daughter as she is, he will be doing a good thing.

³⁸ In other words, the man who sees that his daughter is married has done a good thing but the man who keeps his daughter unmarried has done something even better.[*a]

³⁹ A wife is tied as long as her husband is alive. But if the husband dies, she is free to marry anybody she likes, only it must be in the Lord.

⁴⁰ She would be happier, in my opinion, if she stayed as she is – and I too have the Spirit of God, I think.