100 Bible Verses about Marriage Laws

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 106 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.

Genesis 2:24 ESV / 105 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 Corinthians 7:1-40 ESV / 74 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. ...

Ephesians 5:25 ESV / 67 helpful votes

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

1 Peter 3:7 ESV / 65 helpful votes

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Luke 16:18 ESV / 65 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 5:33 ESV / 61 helpful votes

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Matthew 5:32 ESV / 60 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.

Mark 10:9 ESV / 49 helpful votes

What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Matthew 19:9 ESV / 46 helpful votes

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

1 Timothy 3:2 ESV / 42 helpful votes

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

Genesis 2:18 ESV / 42 helpful votes

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Proverbs 31:10 ESV / 41 helpful votes

An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.

Proverbs 18:22 ESV / 37 helpful votes

He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.

Ephesians 5:28 ESV / 36 helpful votes

In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

Colossians 3:19 ESV / 35 helpful votes

Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

Exodus 21:10 ESV / 35 helpful votes

If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights.

1 Peter 4:8 ESV / 34 helpful votes

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

1 Corinthians 7:39 ESV / 34 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.

Matthew 19:5 ESV / 34 helpful votes

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’?

Romans 7:3 ESV / 32 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 19:4-6 ESV / 32 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.”

Ephesians 5:22-33 ESV / 31 helpful votes

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ...

Matthew 19:6 ESV / 31 helpful votes

So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

2 Corinthians 6:14 ESV / 28 helpful votes

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

1 Corinthians 7:10 ESV / 28 helpful votes

To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband

Romans 7:2 ESV / 28 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.

Colossians 3:14 ESV / 26 helpful votes

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Ephesians 4:2 ESV / 26 helpful votes

With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

1 Corinthians 13:13 ESV / 25 helpful votes

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 7:15 ESV / 25 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.

Ephesians 5:31 ESV / 24 helpful votes

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

1 Corinthians 7:2 ESV / 24 helpful votes

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

John 15:12 ESV / 23 helpful votes

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Proverbs 12:4 ESV / 23 helpful votes

An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones.

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 ESV / 23 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.

Ephesians 4:2-3 ESV / 22 helpful votes

With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

1 Corinthians 7:4 ESV / 22 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.

Matthew 19:1-30 ESV / 22 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’? ...

Malachi 2:16 ESV / 22 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 24:1-22 ESV / 22 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. “When a man is newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be liable for any other public duty. He shall be free at home one year to be happy with his wife whom he has taken. ...

Romans 13:8 ESV / 21 helpful votes

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

Malachi 2:14-15 ESV / 21 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.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 ESV / 21 helpful votes

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

1 Corinthians 16:14 ESV / 20 helpful votes

Let all that you do be done in love.

Malachi 2:14 ESV / 20 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.

Deuteronomy 22:13-21 ESV / 20 helpful votes

“If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her, saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,’ then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate. And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her; and behold, he has accused her of misconduct, saying, “I did not find in your daughter evidence of virginity.” And yet this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.’ And they shall spread the cloak before the elders of the city. ...

Colossians 3:18-19 ESV / 19 helpful votes

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

1 Corinthians 13:2 ESV / 18 helpful votes

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.

Mark 10:2-12 ESV / 18 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.’ ...

Ecclesiastes 4:12 ESV / 18 helpful votes

And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:9 ESV / 18 helpful votes

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.

Deuteronomy 24:1 ESV / 18 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,

Leviticus 18:22 ESV / 18 helpful votes

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

1 Corinthians 7:5 ESV / 17 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.

Matthew 22:2 ESV / 17 helpful votes

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son,

Matthew 19:4 ESV / 17 helpful votes

He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,

Proverbs 3:1-35 ESV / 17 helpful votes

My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. ...

Leviticus 18:1-30 ESV / 17 helpful votes

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord. ...

1 John 4:16 ESV / 16 helpful votes

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

Ephesians 5:25-33 ESV / 16 helpful votes

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, ...

Matthew 22:30 ESV / 16 helpful votes

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

Genesis 2:1-25 ESV / 16 helpful votes

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, ...

John 3:16 ESV / 15 helpful votes

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 2:1 ESV / 15 helpful votes

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.

Deuteronomy 24:5 ESV / 15 helpful votes

“When a man is newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be liable for any other public duty. He shall be free at home one year to be happy with his wife whom he has taken.

Revelation 19:7 ESV / 14 helpful votes

Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready;

1 Corinthians 13:4-5 ESV / 14 helpful votes

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;

Romans 7:2-3 ESV / 14 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.

Mark 10:11 ESV / 14 helpful votes

And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her,

Matthew 19:8 ESV / 14 helpful votes

He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

Isaiah 62:5 ESV / 14 helpful votes

For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

Proverbs 3:3-4 ESV / 14 helpful votes

Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man.

Galatians 5:22-23 ESV / 13 helpful votes

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Song of Solomon 8:6-7 ESV / 13 helpful votes

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.

Leviticus 21:7 ESV / 13 helpful votes

They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who has been defiled, neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband, for the priest is holy to his God.

1 Timothy 5:14 ESV / 12 helpful votes

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

Ephesians 5:22 ESV / 12 helpful votes

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

John 3:16-17 ESV / 12 helpful votes

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Matthew 5:31 ESV / 12 helpful votes

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’

Isaiah 54:5 ESV / 12 helpful votes

For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.

Revelation 1:1-20 ESV / 11 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 ...

1 Corinthians 7:38 ESV / 11 helpful votes

So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.

1 Corinthians 7:9 ESV / 11 helpful votes

But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

1 Corinthians 6:1-20 ESV / 11 helpful votes

When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, ...

Mark 12:25 ESV / 11 helpful votes

For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

Mark 10:6 ESV / 11 helpful votes

But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’

Matthew 19:10 ESV / 11 helpful votes

The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”

Psalm 143:8 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

1 John 3:21-22 ESV / 10 helpful votes

Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.

Galatians 6:2 ESV / 10 helpful votes

Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV / 10 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; ...

Romans 7:1-25 ESV / 10 helpful votes

Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 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. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. ...

Romans 6:15 ESV / 10 helpful votes

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

John 2:2 ESV / 10 helpful votes

Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.

Genesis 1:27-28 ESV / 10 helpful votes

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.”

Ephesians 6:4 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Ephesians 5:32 ESV / 9 helpful votes

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Mark 10:6-9 ESV / 9 helpful votes

But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and 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.”

1 John 4:21 ESV / 8 helpful votes

And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

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