1 Corinthians 7

¹Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman.

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

³Let the husband give his wife the affection owed her, and likewise also the wife her husband.

⁴The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise also the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

⁵Don’t deprive one another, unless it is by consent for a season, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and may be together again, that Satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

⁶But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment.

⁷Yet I wish that all men were like me. However, each man has his own gift from God, one of this kind, and another of that kind.

⁸But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am.

⁹But if they don’t have self-control, let them marry. For it’s better to marry than to burn with passion.

¹⁰But to the married I command—not I, but the Lord—that the wife not leave her husband

¹¹(but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband not leave his wife.

¹²But to the rest I—not the Lord—say, if any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she is content to live with him, let him not leave her.