New Testament in a Year

Questions about marriage

7 You wrote to ask me about certain things. You say, ‘It is a good thing when a man does not marry.’ ² That may be true, but then people may have sex in wrong ways. So every man should have his own wife and every woman should have her own husband. ³ Then they may have sex with each other in the right way. A husband should agree to have sex with his wife. And the wife should do the same thing for her husband. ⁴ The wife does not rule over her own body to decide when to have sex. She belongs to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not rule over his own body. He belongs to his wife.

⁵ Do not refuse to have sex with each other, unless both of you agree to stop for a short time. Then you can use more time to pray. But you should come together again soon, as husband and wife. If not, Satan may try to make you do something wrong. You may want too strongly to have sex with someone else. ⁶ I am saying these things to help you. I am not telling you what you must do. ⁷ It would be good if all of you could live in the way that I do. But each person has his own gift from God. God helps one person to live in a certain way. God helps another person with a different gift.

⁸ I will say this to those of you who have not married yet, and to those who are widows. It is better for you to remain alone. That is how I myself live. ⁹ But if you want to have sex too strongly, then you should marry. It is better to do that than to want to have sex all the time.

¹⁰ I will say this to people who have married. (This is not my rule. It is a rule that comes from the Lord himself.) A wife must not leave her husband. ¹¹ But if she does leave him, she must not marry another man. Or she should go back to live with her husband. In the same way, a husband must not send his wife away.

¹² To all you other people, I say this. (This is what I think. The Lord has not spoken about it.) A Christian man may have a wife who does not believe in Christ. If she agrees to continue living with him, then he should not send her away. ¹³ Also, a Christian woman may have a husband who does not believe in Christ. If he agrees to continue living with her, then she should not leave him. ¹⁴ God accepts a husband who does not believe in Christ because of his Christian wife. And God accepts a wife who does not believe in Christ because of her Christian husband. If that was not true, the children would not belong to God. But God does accept them, because to him they are now clean.

¹⁵ But the husband or wife who does not believe in Christ may want to leave. If they want to become separate, let them do that. If that happens, the Christian man or woman is now free. God wants you to live in peace. ¹⁶ If you are a Christian wife, you might save your husband. If you are a Christian husband, you might save your wife. But you can not be sure of what will happen.

¹⁷ But each of you should continue to live in the way that God has chosen for you. Remain as you were at the time when God called you to come to him. I teach that rule to people in all the churches. ¹⁸ Some of you are Jews, so people circumcised you. That happened before you believed in Christ. So do not try to change it. Some of you are not Jews. Nobody circumcised you. So continue like that. Do not ask anyone to circumcise you. ¹⁹ It is not important whether someone has circumcised you or not. The important thing is this: Obey what God says.