What Does the Bible Say About Living Together Outside Of Marriage?

1 Corinthians 6:18 ESV / 11 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.

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 7 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 5:28 ESV / 7 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.

Galatians 5:19-21 ESV / 6 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.

1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV / 6 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.

1 Corinthians 7:2 ESV / 5 helpful votes

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

Acts 24:16 ESV / 5 helpful votes

So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.

Mark 7:21-22 ESV / 5 helpful votes

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.

Isaiah 1:1-66:24 ESV / 5 helpful votes

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. ...

1 Corinthians 7:1-40 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. ...

Genesis 2:24 ESV / 4 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 5:22 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Abstain from every form of evil.

Ephesians 5:3 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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

Mark 10:2 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

Matthew 5:27-28 ESV / 3 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.

1 John 1:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

2 Peter 2:1-22 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; ...

1 Thessalonians 4:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;

Colossians 3:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Galatians 5:19 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,

2 Corinthians 12:21 ESV / 2 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.

1 Corinthians 6:13 ESV / 2 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.

Romans 13:13-14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Romans 10:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Romans 10:9-11 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”

Romans 8:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Romans 8:1-39 ESV / 2 helpful votes

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ...

Romans 6:23 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 5:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

Romans 5:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 3:23 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Acts 15:20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.

Acts 10:34-35 ESV / 2 helpful votes

So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

John 15:1-27 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. ...

John 8:34 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

Luke 9:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases,

Mark 9:1-50 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.” And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” ...

Matthew 24:1-51 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. ...

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.”

Matthew 19:1-30 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” 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’? ...

Hosea 3:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.”

Ecclesiastes 12:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Proverbs 5:18-19 ESV / 2 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.

Psalm 121:1-8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

A Song of Ascents. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. ...

Job 31:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?

2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Deuteronomy 5:1-33 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain. He said: ...

Exodus 20:1-26 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, ...

Genesis 3:16-19 ESV / 2 helpful votes

To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

49 Bible Verses about Living Together Outside Of Marriage

1 Corinthians 6:18 ESV / 11 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 7 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 5:28 ESV / 7 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Galatians 5:19-21 ESV / 6 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV / 6 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

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

Acts 24:16 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Mark 7:21-22 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Isaiah 1:1-66:24 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:1-40 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 2:24 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Thessalonians 5:22 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

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

Mark 10:2 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 5:27-28 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 John 1:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Peter 2:1-22 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Thessalonians 4:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Colossians 3:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Galatians 5:19 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Corinthians 12:21 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 6:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Romans 13:13-14 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Romans 10:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Romans 10:9-11 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Romans 8:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Romans 8:1-39 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Romans 6:23 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Romans 5:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Romans 5:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Romans 3:23 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Acts 15:20 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Acts 10:34-35 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

John 15:1-27 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

John 8:34 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Luke 9:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Mark 9:1-50 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 24:1-51 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

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

Matthew 19:1-30 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Hosea 3:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ecclesiastes 12:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Proverbs 5:18-19 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Psalm 121:1-8 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Job 31:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Deuteronomy 5:1-33 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Exodus 20:1-26 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 3:16-19 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Suggest a Verse

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