30 Bible Verses on Sexual Immorality

When Paul wrote his epistles to the Corinthian church they were struggling with sins that caused Paul to use one of the sternest tones we see in all of his epistles. While there were many pervasive sins that caused the occasion for these letters, sexual immorality was one of the especially concerning ones on his list. Paul has to remind these Christians that their bodies, like yours, belong to God, and that Christians cannot give up their bodies to sexual immorality. We are instead meant to offer our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice as our spiritual worship (Romans 12:1). These verses show us what God’s Word has to say about sexual immorality.

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What Does the Bible Say About Sexual Immorality?

Old Testament

Exodus 20:14
“You shall not commit adultery.”

Proverbs 6:32
He who commits adultery lacks sense;
he who does it destroys himself.

New Testament

Matthew 5:28
“But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Matthew 15:19
“For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”

Acts 15:29
“that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

Acts 21:25
“But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality.”

Romans 1:24–25
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Romans 13:13
Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy.

1 Corinthians 5:9–11
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.

1 Corinthians 6:9
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,

1 Corinthians 6:13–15
“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!

1 Corinthians 6:18–20
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

1 Corinthians 7:2
But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

Galatians 5:19–21
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Ephesians 5:5
For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Colossians 3:5
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

1 Thessalonians 4:3–4
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor,

Hebrews 13:4
Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

Revelation 2:21
I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.

Revelation 14:8
Another angel, a second, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality.”