Old/New Testament

7 You wrote me a letter. Here is my answer to the things in the letter. It is good if a man has nothing to do with a woman.

² But wrong sex is always a danger to us. So it is better for each man to have his own wife and each woman to have her own husband.

³ The husband should give his wife what is right. So also, the wife should give her husband what is right.

⁴ The wife does not have full right over her own body. But her husband has a right to it. In the same way, the husband does not have full right over his own body. But his wife has a right to it.

⁵ Do not keep from the other what is right for them to have. It is all right to stay from each other for a while, if you both agree to it. Then you will have time for prayer. Afterwards, come together again. If you do not, Satan might tempt you to do wrong.

⁶ I say you may do this. I do not say that you must do it.

⁷ I wish that all men were like I am. But God has made everyone different. One man can live one way and another man can live another way.

⁸ Here is what I say to those who are not married and to those whose husbands are dead. It is good for them to stay the way I am.

⁹ But if they cannot keep themselves under control, then they should marry. It is better to marry than to burn with desire for sex.

¹⁰ And here is what I say to those who are married. (And yet it is not what I say. It is what the Lord has said.) The wife may not leave her husband.

¹¹ But if she does leave him, she must not marry again, or she must come back to her husband again. And the husband may not send away his wife.

¹² Here is what I say to other people. (This is my word, not the Lord's.) Perhaps a Christian brother has a wife who is not a Christian. If she wants to stay with him, then he should not send her away.

¹³ Perhaps a woman has a husband who is not a Christian. If he wants to stay with her, then the woman should not leave him.

¹⁴ The husband who is not a Christian is made holy by the wife. And the wife who is not a Christian is made holy by the husband. If this were not so, then your children would not be holy. But they are holy.

¹⁵ If the one who is not a Christian really wants to leave, let him go. The Christian husband or wife is free then. God has called us to live in peace.

¹⁶ Wife, you do not know. Perhaps you will win your husband to the Lord. Husband, you do not know. Perhaps you will win your wife to the Lord.

¹⁷ Only let me say this. Every man should go on living in the way which the Lord chooses for him. He should go on as he was when God called him to be a Christian. I say this to people in all the churches.

¹⁸ If a man was already circumcised when God called him, he should not try to change the marks of it. If a man was not circumcised when God called him, he should not be circumcised.

¹⁹ It does not matter whether one is circumcised or not. The thing that matters is doing what God says we must do.