Teaching on Marriage

1 Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is agood for a man not to touch a woman.

2 But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband.

3 The husband must 1fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband.

4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

5 aStop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and 1come together again so that bSatan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

6 But this I say by way of concession, anot of command.

7 1Yet I wish that all men were aeven as I myself am. However, beach man has his own gift from God, one in this manner, and another in that.

8 But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is agood for them if they remain beven as I.

9 But if they do not have self-control, alet them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

10 But to the married I give instructions, anot I, but the Lord, that the wife should not 1leave her husband

11 (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not 1divorce his wife.

12 But to the rest aI say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not 1divorce her.

13 And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not 1send her husband away.

14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through 1her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are aholy.

15 Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called 1us 2ato peace.

16 For how do you know, O wife, whether you will asave your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?