marital sex

¹Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. ²But, because of fornication, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. ³A husband should fulfill his obligation to his wife, and a wife should also act similarly toward her husband. ⁴It is not the wife, but the husband, who has power over her body. But, similarly also, it is not the husband, but the wife, who has power over his body. ⁵So, do not fail in your obligations to one another, except perhaps by consent, for a limited time, so that you may empty yourselves for prayer. And then, return together again, lest Satan tempt you by means of your abstinence. ⁶But I am saying this, neither as an indulgence, nor as a commandment.

⁴May marriage be honorable in every way, and may the marriage bed be immaculate. For God will judge fornicators and adulterers.

⁹But if they cannot restrain themselves, they should marry. For it is better to marry, than to be burned.

²⁴For this reason, a man shall leave behind his father and mother, and he shall cling to his wife; and the two shall be as one flesh.

¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern and from the springs of your own well. ¹⁶Let your fountains be diverted far and wide, and divide your waters in the streets. ¹⁷Hold them for yourself alone, and do not let strangers be partakers with you. ¹⁸Let your spring be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth: ¹⁹a beloved doe and most pleasing fawn. Let her breasts inebriate you at all times. Be delighted continually by her love.

¹⁸Flee from fornication. Every sin whatsoever that a man commits is outside of the body, but whoever fornicates, sins against his own body.

⁶Your head is like Carmel, and the hairs of your head are like the purple of the king, bound into pleats. ⁷Most beloved one, how beautiful you are, and how graceful in delights! ⁸Your stature is comparable to the palm tree, and your breasts to clusters of grapes. ⁹Groom: I said, I will ascend to the palm tree, and take hold of its fruit. And your breasts will be like clusters of grapes on the vine. And the fragrance of your mouth will be like apples. ¹⁰Bride: Your throat is like the finest wine: wine worthy for my beloved to drink, and for his lips and teeth to contemplate. ¹¹I am for my beloved, and his turning is to me.

²⁸But I say to you, that anyone who will have looked at a woman, so as to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

³For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from fornication, ⁴that each one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, ⁵not in passions of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God,

⁴Charity is patient, is kind. Charity does not envy, does not act wrongly, is not inflated. ⁵Charity is not ambitious, does not seek for itself, is not provoked to anger, devises no evil. ⁶Charity does not rejoice over iniquity, but rejoices in truth. ⁷Charity suffers all, believes all, hopes all, endures all. ⁸Charity is never torn away, even if prophecies pass away, or languages cease, or knowledge is destroyed.

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

¹⁶So then, I say: Walk in the spirit, and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh.

³³Yet truly, each and every one of you should love his wife as himself. And a wife should fear her husband.

²⁷Do not prevent him who is able from doing good. When you are able, do good yourself too.

²⁸And God blessed them, and he said, “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the flying creatures of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

²⁸If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who does not have a betrothal, and, taking her, he lies with her, and the matter is brought to judgment, ²⁹then he who slept with her shall give to the father of the girl fifty shekels of silver, and he shall have her as a wife, because he has humiliated her. He cannot dismiss her, throughout all the days of his life.

⁹Do you not know that the iniquitous will not possess the kingdom of God? Do not choose to wander astray. For neither fornicators, nor servants of idolatry, nor adulterers, ¹⁰nor the effeminate, nor males who sleep with males, nor thieves, nor the avaricious, nor the inebriated, nor slanderers, nor the rapacious shall possess the kingdom of God. ¹¹And some of you were like this. But you have been absolved, but you have been sanctified, but you have been justified: all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

²⁵Now they were both naked: Adam, of course, and his wife. And they were not ashamed.

¹⁶A man from whom the seed of sexual intercourse goes out shall wash his entire body with water, and he shall be unclean until evening. ¹⁷The garment or skin which he will have, he shall wash with water, and it shall be unclean until evening. ¹⁸The woman with whom he has had sexual intercourse shall be washed with water, and she shall be unclean until evening.

⁶Be anxious about nothing. But in all things, with prayer and supplication, with acts of thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God.