virginity

⁸But I say to the unmarried and to widows: It is good for them, if they would remain as they are, just as I also am. ⁹But if they cannot restrain themselves, they should marry. For it is better to marry, than to be burned.

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

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.

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

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, ⁶and that no one should overwhelm or circumvent his brother in business. For the Lord is the vindicator of all these things, just as we have preached and testified to you. ⁷For God has not called us to impurity, but to sanctification. ⁸And so, whoever despises these teachings, does not despise man, but God, who has even provided his Holy Spirit within us.

⁴These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are Virgins. These follow the Lamb wherever he will go. These were redeemed from men as the first-fruits for God and for the Lamb.

¹⁸Flee from fornication. Every sin whatsoever that a man commits is outside of the body, but whoever fornicates, sins against his own body. ¹⁹Or do you not know that your bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? ²⁰For you have been bought at a great price. Glorify and carry God in your body.

¹³If a man takes a wife, and afterwards he has hatred for her, ¹⁴and so he seeks opportunities to dismiss her, imputing a very wicked name to her by saying, ‘I received this woman as a wife, and upon entering to her, I found her not to be a virgin,’ ¹⁵then her father and mother shall take her, and they shall bring with them the signs of her virginity, to the elders of the city who are at the gate. ¹⁶And the father shall say: ‘I gave my daughter to this man as a wife. And because he hates her, ¹⁷he accuses her with a very wicked name, by saying: “I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.” But behold, these are the signs of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the clothing before the elders of the city. ¹⁸And the elders of that city shall apprehend that man and beat him.

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.

⁶But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. ⁷Because of this, a man shall leave behind his father and mother, and he shall cling to his wife. ⁸And these two shall be one in flesh. And so, they are now, not two, but one flesh.

¹And so, I beg you, brothers, by the mercy of God, that you offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, with the subservience of your mind. ²And do not choose to be conformed to this age, but instead choose to be reformed in the newness of your mind, so that you may demonstrate what is the will of God: what is good, and what is well-pleasing, and what is perfect.