Sexual Holiness

The Bible says sexual immorality is to be avoided: believers are told to flee sexual sin, abstain from sexual immorality, and put away sexual sin, impurity, passion, and evil desire (1 Corinthians 6:18; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; Colossians 3:5).

The word or idea recurs in at least 22 verses across 11 books and 15 episodes. In the collected verses, sexual immorality is named among “the works of the flesh” and among conduct opposed to sound teaching (Galatians 5:19; 1 Timothy 1:10). One passage says that marriage is to be honored and the marriage bed kept undefiled, adding that God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers (Hebrews 13:4). Another directs each man to have his own wife and each woman her own husband because of acts of sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 7:2).

Several Torah passages address particular sexual acts and state penalties within their legal wording (Leviticus 20:11; Leviticus 20:13; Deuteronomy 27:20). Numbers describes Israel beginning to commit sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab (Numbers 25:1).