61 Bible Verses about Marriage, Restrictions Concerning

And Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite there whose name [was] Shua. And he took her and went in to her.

And Pharaoh called the name of Joseph Zaphenath-paneah and gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, as a wife. And Joseph went out over the land of Egypt.

And Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave Zipporah his daughter to Moses.

And an Israelite woman's son, and he [was] an Egyptian man's son, went out in the midst of the {Israelites}; and the Israelite woman's son and an Israelite man fought in the camp.

And {they took} for themselves Moabite wives. The name of the one [was] Orpah and the name of the other [was] Ruth. And they lived there about ten years.

And Sheshan had no sons, only daughters, but Sheshan had an Egyptian slave, and his name [was] Jarha. So Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his slave for a wife, and she bore to him Attai.

There was found from the sons of the priests those who had married foreign women, from the sons of Jeshua son of Jehozadak and his brothers: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah. {They pledged themselves} to put away their wives, and their guilt offering was a ram of the flock for their guilt. From the sons of Immer: Hanani and Zebadiah.read more.
From the sons of Harim: Maaseiah, Elijah, Shemaiah, Jehiel, and Uzziah. From the sons of Pashhur: Elioenai, Maaseiah, Ishmael, Nethanel, Jozabad, and Eleasah. From the Levites: Jozabad, Shimei, Kelaiah (that is, Kelita), Pethahiah, Judah, and Eliezer. From the singers: Eliashib. From the gatekeepers: Shallum, Telem, and Uri. And from Israel, the sons of Parosh: Ramiah, Izziah, Malkijah, Mijamin, Eleazar, Malkijah, and Benaiah. From the sons of Elam: Mattaniah, Zechariah, Jehiel, Abdi, Jeremoth, and Elijah. From the sons of Zattu: Elioenai, Eliashib, Mattaniah, Jeremoth, Zabad, and Aziza. From the sons of Bebai: Jehohanan, Hananiah, Zabbai, and Athlai. From the sons of Bani: Meshullam, Malluch, Adaiah, Jashub, Sheal, and Jeremoth. From the sons of Pahath-Moab: Adna, Kelal, Benaiah, Maaseiah, Mattaniah, Bezalel, Binnui, and Manasseh. From the sons of Harim: Eliezer, Isshiah, Malkijah, Shemaiah, Simeon, Benjamin, Malluch, and Shemariah. From the sons of Hashum: Mattenai, Mattattah, Zabad, Eliphelet, Jeremai, Manasseh, and Shimei. From the sons of Bani: Maadai, Amram, Uel, Benaiah, Bedeiah, Keluhi, Vaniah, Meremoth, Eliashib, Mattaniah, Mattenai, Jaasu, Bani, Binnui, Shimei, Shelemiah, Nathan, Adaiah, Macnadebai, Shashai, Sharai, Azarel, Shelemiah, Shemariah, Shallum, Amariah, and Joseph. From the sons of Nebo: Jeiel, Mattithiah, Zabad, Zebina, Iddo, Joel, and Benaiah. All of these had married foreign wives, and some from among the wives bore children.

and you take from their daughters for your sons, and their daughters prostitute [themselves] after their gods, and they cause your sons to prostitute [themselves] after their gods.

And you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughter to their son; and you shall not take his daughter for your son. For their sons and daughters will cause your son to turn away {from following me}, and [so] they will serve other gods, and {the anger of Yahweh would be kindled} against you, and he would quickly destroy you.

for if indeed you turn back and join these remaining nations {among you}, and you intermarry with them, {marrying their women and they yours}, know for certain that Yahweh your God {will not continue to drive out} these nations from before you; they will be for you a snare and a trap, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that Yahweh your God has given to you.

And the {Israelites} lived in the midst of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And they took their daughters as wives for themselves, and they gave their daughters to their sons, and they served their gods.

King Solomon loved many foreign women: the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, Hittite; from the nations which Yahweh had said to the {Israelites}, "You shall not {marry them}, and they shall not {marry you}. They will certainly turn your heart after other gods." But Solomon clung to them to love. He had seven hundred princesses and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart.read more.
It happened at the time of Solomon's old age that his wives guided his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully with Yahweh his God as the heart of David his father [had been]. Solomon went after Ashtoreth the god of [the] Sidonians and after Molech the abhorrence of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of Yahweh and did not fully [follow] after Yahweh as David his father. At that time, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, on the mountain which {faces} Jerusalem and for Molech, the abomination of the {Ammonites}. Thus he did for all of his foreign wives, offering incense and sacrificing to their gods.

{If it wasn't enough that he went} after the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he also took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal the king of the Sidonians. He went and served Baal and bowed down to him.

Judah has been faithless, and a detestable thing has been done in Israel and in Jerusalem. Judah has profaned the sanctuary of Yahweh which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.

After finishing these things the officials approached me saying, "The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites have not separated from the people of the lands with their detestable things, and from the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites. For they have taken from their daughters for themselves and their sons. So the holy seed has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands, and the hand of the officials and prefects were foremost in this sin.

While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children from Israel gathered to him. And the people wept bitterly. Shecaniah son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, answered and said to Ezra, "We ourselves have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, and even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.

Also in those days I saw Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. Half of their children spoke Ashdodite and could not speak Judean, but [only] the tongues of other nations. So I quarreled with them and cursed them and beat some of their men and pulled out their hair. I made them take an oath by God: "Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.read more.
Did not King Solomon of Israel sin in this way? And among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Yet the foreign women made even him sin. Should we listen to you all and do this great evil, acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women?"

We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land nor take their daughters for our sons.

that I may make you swear by Yahweh, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites in whose midst I am dwelling, but that you will go to my land and to my family, and take a wife for my son, for Isaac."

And [when] Esau was forty years old he took as wife Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite. And {they made life bitter} for Isaac and Rebekah.

Then Rebekah said to Isaac, "I loathe my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob takes a wife from Hittite women like these, from the {native women}, {what am I living for}?"

Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him. And he instructed him and said to him, "You must not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Paddan-Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and take for yourself a wife from there, from the daughters of Laban your mother's brother.

But his father and mother said to him, "Is there not a wife among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must take a wife from [the] uncircumcised Philistines?" But Samson said to his father, "Take her for me because {she pleases me}."

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. And he went [in] to her, and Yahweh {enabled her to conceive}, and she bore a son.

So now let us make a covenant with our God to send away all of these women and their offspring, according to the advice of my lord and those who tremble at the commandment of our God. Let it be done according to the law.

Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, "You have broke faith and married foreign women, increasing the guilt of Israel. Now make a confession to Yahweh the God of your ancestors and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign women." Then all the assembly answered with a great voice and said, "It is so. We must do according to your words.read more.
But the people are many, and it is the time of rain; we are unable to stand outside. The task is not for one day or two, for we greatly rebelled in this matter. Please let our leaders stand for the whole assembly, and let all that are in our cities who have married foreign women come at set times, and with them the elders of and judges of each city, until the fierce wrath of our God because of this matter is averted from us." Only Jehonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah stood against this, and the Levites Meshullam and Shabbethai supported them. The {returned exiles} did so. Ezra the priest selected men, the heads of the {families} according to the house of their fathers, all of them by name. They sat down to examine the matter on the first day of the tenth month. They finished [investigating] all the men who married foreign women by the first day of the first month.

A wife is bound for as long a time [as] her husband lives. But if her husband {dies}, she is free to marry whomever she wishes, only in the Lord.

Do not become unevenly yoked with unbelievers, for what participation [is there between] righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship [does] light [have] with darkness?

Now to the rest I say--not the Lord--if any brother has an unbelieving wife and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if any wife has an unbelieving husband and he consents to live with her, she must not divorce her husband. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the brother, since otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy.read more.
But if the unbeliever leaves, let him leave. The brother or the sister is not bound in such [cases]. But God has called us in peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

" '{None} [of] you shall approach anyone [who is] {his close relative} to expose nakedness; I [am] Yahweh. You must not expose your father's nakedness or your mother's nakedness--she [is] your mother; you must not expose her nakedness. You must not expose the nakedness of your father's wife--it is your father's nakedness.read more.
[As for] your sister's nakedness, [whether] your father's daughter or your mother's daughter, [whether] {born at home} or {born abroad}, you must not expose their nakedness. [As for] the nakedness of your son's daughter or your daughter's daughter, you must not expose their nakedness, because they [are] your nakedness. [As for] the nakedness of the daughter of your father's wife, she [is] your sister, a relative of your father; you must not expose her nakedness. You must not expose the nakedness of your father's sister; she [is] {your father's close relative}. You must not expose the nakedness of your mother's sister, because she [is] {your mother's close relative}. You must not expose the nakedness of your father's brother; you must not {have sex with} his wife--she [is] your aunt. You must not expose your daughter-in-law's nakedness; she [is] your son's wife; you must not expose her nakedness. You must not expose the nakedness of your brother's wife; she [is] your brother's nakedness. You must not expose the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, or her son's daughter, or her daughter's daughter; you must not take [her as wife] to expose her nakedness; they [are] {close relatives}--that [is] wickedness. And you must not take [as wife] a woman with her sister, to be a rival-wife, to expose her nakedness before her {during} her life.

As for a man who lies with his father's wife, he has exposed his father's nakedness; both of them shall be put to death--their blood [is] on them. As for a man who lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall be put to death; they have committed a perversion--their blood [is] on them.

A man may not take the wife of his father, and [so] {he may not dishonor his father}.

They uncover [the] nakedness of father among you; they violate [a woman] unclean of menstruation among you. And a man does a detestable thing [with] the wife of his neighbor, and a man defiles his daughter-in-law in wickedness, and a man sexually violates among you his sister, the daughter of his father.

For Herod, [after] arresting John, bound him and put [him] in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, because John had been saying to him, "It is not permitted for you to have her."

For Herod himself had sent [and] arrested John and bound him in prison because of Herodias, the wife of Philip his brother, because he had married her. For John had been saying to Herod, "It is not permitted for you to have your brother's wife."

{Besides}, she [is] my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother. And she became my wife.

As for me, where should I take my disgrace? You will be as one of the fools in Israel. So please, speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you."

"When brothers dwell together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not become the wife of a {man of another family}; her brother-in-law {shall have sex with her}, and he shall take her {to himself} as wife, and he shall perform his duty as brother-in-law [with respect to] her. And then the firstborn that she bears {shall represent his dead brother}, so that his name is not blotted out from Israel. But if the man [does] not want to take his sister-in-law, then his sister-in-law shall go up to the gate, to the elders, and she shall say, 'My brother-in-law refused {to perpetuate his brother's name} in Israel, [for] he is not willing {to marry me}.'read more.
Then the elders of his town shall summon him and speak to him, and [if] he persists and says, '{I do not desire to} marry her' [then] his sister-in-law shall go near him before the eyes of the elders, and she shall pull off his sandal from his foot, and she shall spit in his face, and she shall {declare} and she shall say, 'This is how it is done to the man who does not build the house of his brother.' And his {family} shall be called in Israel, 'The house where the sandal was pulled off.'

And also Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, I have acquired as a wife, to raise up the name of the dead over his inheritance, so that the name of the dead may not be cut off from his relatives and from the gate of his [birth] place. You [are] witnesses today."

Then Judah said to Onan, "Go in to the wife of your brother and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother."

And Naomi said, "Return, my daughters. {Why do you still want to go with me}? [Are there] sons {in my womb} that may be husbands for you? Turn back, my daughters! Go, for {I am too old to have a husband}. If I should think there is hope for me, even if I should have a husband [this] night, and even if I should bear sons, would you therefore wait until they were grown? Would you therefore {refrain from marrying}? No, my daughters, for it is far more bitter to me than [to] you. For the hand of Yahweh has gone out against me."

And he said, "Who [are] you?" And she said, "I [am] Ruth, your servant. Spread {your garment} over your servant because you [are] a redeemer."

And Boaz said, "On the day of your acquiring the field from the hand of Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the wife of the dead [man], [in order] to raise up [for] the name of the dead his inheritance."

saying, "Teacher, Moses said if someone dies without having children, his brother is to marry his wife and {father} descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers with us. And the first died [after] getting married, and [because he] did not have descendants, he left his wife to his brother. So also the second and the third, up to the seventh.

"Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if someone's brother dies and he leaves behind a wife and does not leave a child, that his brother should take the wife and {father} descendants for his brother. There were seven brothers, and the first took a wife. And [when he] died, he did not leave descendants. And the second took her, and he died without leaving descendants. And the third likewise.read more.
And the seven did not leave descendants. Last of all the woman also died.

saying, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us if someone's brother dies having a wife, and this man is childless, that his brother should take the wife and {father} descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers, and the first took a wife [and] died childless, and the second,read more.
and the third took her, and likewise also the seven did not leave children and died.

But Onan knew that the offspring would not be for him, so whenever he went in to the wife of his brother he would waste [it] on the ground so as not to give offspring to his brother.

And the redeemer said, "I am not able to redeem for myself, lest I ruin my inheritance. You redeem for yourself my kinsman-redemption, for I am not able to redeem [it]."

" 'If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged and he lies with her, he surely will give her bride price {to have her as his wife}.

"If a man finds a young woman, a virgin [who] is not engaged, and he seizes her and {he has sex with her} and they are caught, then {the man who lay with her} shall give to the father of the young woman fifty [shekels] of silver, and she shall become {his wife} {because} he violated her, and he is not allowed to divorce her {during his lifetime}.

For the married woman is bound by law to [her] husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of the husband. Therefore as a result, if she belongs to another man [while] her husband is living, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress [if she] belongs to another man.

May Yahweh {grant that you} find a resting place, each [in] the house of her husband." And she kissed them, and they lifted up their voice and cried.

Now I say to the unmarried and to the widows: [It is] good for them if they remain as I [am]. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn [with sexual desire].

Therefore I want younger [widows] to marry, to bear children, to manage a household, to give the adversary no opportunity for reproach.

"Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and the one who marries a woman divorced from [her] husband commits adultery.

Now I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the basis of sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery."

And he said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband [and] marries another, she commits adultery."

To the married I command--not I, but the Lord--a wife must not separate from [her] husband. But if indeed she does separate, she must remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce [his] wife.

"When a man takes a wife and he marries her {and then} {she does not please him}, because he found {something objectionable} and writes her a letter of divorce and puts [it] in her hand and sends her [away] from his house, and she goes from his house, and she goes [out] and becomes [a wife] {for another man}, and [then] the second man dislikes her and he writes her a letter of divorce and places [it] into her hand and sends her from his house, or if the second man dies who took her {to himself} as a wife,read more.
her first husband who sent her [away] is not allowed {to take her again} to become a wife to him after she has {been defiled}, for that [is] a detestable thing {before} Yahweh, and [so] you shall not mislead into sin the land that Yahweh your God [is] giving to you [as an] inheritance.

But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for a matter of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

But if the unbeliever leaves, let him leave. The brother or the sister is not bound in such [cases]. But God has called us in peace.