Fornication

But because of your fame, you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot. You lavished your favors on everyone who passed by, and your beauty was theirs for the asking.

You even took the sons and daughters you bore to Me and sacrificed them as food to idols. Was your prostitution not enough?

And in all your abominations and acts of prostitution, you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your own blood.

At the head of every street you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty. With increasing promiscuity, you spread your legs to all who passed by.

You prostituted yourself with your lustful neighbors, the Egyptians, and increased your promiscuity to provoke Me to anger.

So you extended your promiscuity to Chaldea, the land of merchants—but even with this you were not satisfied!

Men give gifts to all their prostitutes, but you gave gifts to all your lovers. You bribed them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors.

So your prostitution is the opposite of that of other women: No one solicited your favors, and you paid a fee instead of receiving one; so you are the very opposite!

This is what the Lord GOD says: Because you poured out your wealth and exposed your nakedness in your promiscuity with your lovers and with all your detestable idols, and because of the blood of your children which you gave to them,

She offered sexual favors to all the elite of Assyria. She defiled herself with all the idols of those for whom she lusted.

She did not give up the prostitution she began in Egypt, when men slept with her in her youth, caressed her virgin bosom, and poured out their lust upon her.

Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet in her lust and prostitution she was more depraved than her sister.

But Oholibah carried her prostitution even further. She saw the men portrayed on the wall, images of the Chaldeans, engraved in vermilion,

Then the Babylonians came to her, to the bed of love, and in their lust they defiled her. But after she had been defiled by them, she turned away in disgust.

When Oholibah openly prostituted herself and exposed her nakedness, I turned away from her in disgust, just as I had turned away from her sister.

Yet she multiplied her promiscuity, remembering the days of her youth, when she had prostituted herself in the land of Egypt

They will treat you with hatred, take all for which you have worked, and leave you naked and bare, so that the shame of your prostitution will be exposed. Your indecency and promiscuity

Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you have forgotten Me and have cast Me behind your back, you must bear the consequences of your indecency and prostitution.’”

Then I said of her who had grown old in adulteries: ‘Now let them use her as a prostitute, for that is all she is!’

You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, brings adultery upon her. And he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander.

Now I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

“Which ones?” the man asked. Jesus answered, “‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness,

So He told them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.

And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not cheat others, honor your father and mother.’”

For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,

Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother.’”

The scribes and Pharisees, however, brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before them

and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.

You are doing the works of your father.” “We are not illegitimate children,” they declared. “Our only Father is God Himself.”

Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood.

You must abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.

As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they must abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality.”

You who forbid adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?

The commandments “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and any other commandments, are summed up in this one decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is intolerable even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife.

“Food for the stomach and the stomach for food,” but God will destroy them both. The body is not intended for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a man can commit is outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.

But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.

We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.

I am afraid that when I come again, my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of their acts of impurity, sexual immorality, and debauchery.

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery;

But among you, as is proper among the saints, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed.

Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.

For it is God’s will that you should be holy: You must abstain from sexual immorality;

For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

Behold, I will cast her onto a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her will suffer great tribulation unless they repent of her deeds.

But I have a few things against you, because some of you hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to place a stumbling block before the Israelites so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality.

But I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads My servants to be sexually immoral and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

Even though I have given her time to repent of her immorality, she is unwilling.

Furthermore, they did not repent of their murder, sorcery, sexual immorality, and theft.

Then a second angel followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, who has made all the nations drink the wine of the passion of her immorality.”

The kings of the earth were immoral with her, and those who dwell on the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her immorality.”

The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls. She held in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality.

All the nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her immorality. The kings of the earth were immoral with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown wealthy from the extravagance of her luxury.”

Then the kings of the earth who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her will weep and wail at the sight of the smoke rising from the fire that consumes her.

For His judgments are true and just. He has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality. He has avenged the blood of His servants that was poured out by her hand.”