1 Corinthians 7

¹Now, as to the things in your letter to me: It is good for a man to have nothing to do with a woman.

²But because of the desires of the flesh, let every man have his wife, and every woman her husband.

³Let the husband give to the wife what is right; and let the wife do the same to the husband.

⁴The wife has not power over her body, but the husband; and in the same way the husband has not power over his body, but the wife.

⁵Do not keep back from one another what is right, but only for a short time, and by agreement, so that you may give yourselves to prayer, and come together again; so that Satan may not get the better of you through your loss of self-control.

⁶But this I say as my opinion, and not as an order of the Lord.

⁷It is my desire that all men might be even as I am. But every man has the power of his special way of life given him by God, one in this way and one in that.

⁸But I say to the unmarried and to the widows, It is good for them to be even as I am.

⁹But if they have not self-control let them get married; for married life is better than the burning of desire.

¹⁰But to the married I give orders, though not I but the Lord, that the wife may not go away from her husband

¹¹(Or if she goes away from him, let her keep unmarried, or be united to her husband again); and that the husband may not go away from his wife.

¹²But to the rest I say, and not the Lord; If a brother has a wife who is not a Christian, and it is her desire to go on living with him, let him not go away from her.