72 Bible Verses about Self Indulgence

Indeed, all of us once behaved like them in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of our flesh and senses. By nature we were destined for wrath, just like everyone else.

But sin seized the opportunity provided by this commandment and produced in me all kinds of sinful desires, since apart from the Law, sin is dead.

because such people are not serving the Messiah our Lord, but their own desires. By their smooth talk and flattering words they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.

After all, we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, and misled. We were slaves to many kinds of lusts and pleasures, spending our days in malice and jealousy. We were despised, and we hated one another.

Instead, each person is tempted by his own desire, being lured and trapped by it.

By talking high-sounding nonsense and using sinful cravings of the flesh, they entice people who have just escaped from those who live in error. Promising them freedom, they themselves are slaves to depravity, for a person is a slave to whatever conquers him.

For everything that is in the world the desire for fleshly gratification, the desire for possessions, and worldly arrogance is not from the Father but is from the world.

But if you have bitter jealousy and rivalry in your hearts, stop boasting and slandering the truth. That kind of wisdom does not come from above. No, it is worldly, self-centered, and demonic. For wherever jealousy and rivalry exist, there is disorder and every kind of evil.

Whoever isolates himself pursues selfish ends; he resists all sound advice.

idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, rivalry, jealously, outbursts of anger, quarrels, conflicts, factions,

The former proclaim the Messiah because they are selfishly ambitious and insincere, thinking that they will stir up trouble for me during my imprisonment.

Meanwhile, the dogs have a mighty appetite they can never get enough. And as for them, they are the shepherds who lack understanding; they have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, each and every one. ""Come!' they say, "let's have some wine, and let's fill ourselves with strong drink! Then, tomorrow will be like today, or even much better!'"

because when such a person hears the words of this oath, he will bless himself and say: "I will have a peaceful life, even though I'm determined to be stubborn.' By doing this he will be sweeping away both watered and parched ground alike.'

Where do those fights and quarrels among you come from? They come from your selfish desires that are at war in your bodies, don't they? You want something but do not get it, so you commit murder. You covet something but cannot obtain it, so you quarrel and fight. You do not get things because you do not ask for them! You ask for something but do not get it because you ask for it for the wrong reason for your own pleasure.

Now the actions of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, promiscuity,

They called out to Lot and asked, "Where are the men who came to visit you tonight? Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them!"

While Israel remained encamped in Shittim, the people began to commit sexual immorality with Moabite women,

Let's stop sinning sexually, as some of them were doing, and on a single day 23,000 fell dead.

Late one afternoon about dusk, David got up from his couch and was walking around on the roof of the royal palace. From there he watched a woman taking a bath, and she was very beautiful to look at. David sent word to inquire about her, and someone told him, "This is Eliam's daughter Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, isn't it?" So David sent some messengers, took her from her home, and she went to him, and he had sex with her. (She had been consecrating herself following her menstrual separation.) Then she returned to her home.

But as soon as she brought them near him to eat, he overpowered her and told her, "Come here and have sex with me, my sister!" "No, my brother!" she kept telling him. "Don't humiliate me like this! This just isn't done in Israel! Don't do this utterly foolish thing! And what about me? Where will I go to escape this disgrace? And as for you, you'll be known as one of Israel's greatest fools! So please talk to the king, because he won't withhold me from you!"read more.
But he was unwilling to listen to what she was saying. Since he was stronger than she was, he forced her into having sex with him.

I've decorated my bed with new coverings embroidered linen from Egypt. I've perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let's make love until dawn; let's comfort ourselves with love,

I am afraid that when I come my God may again humble me before you and that I may have to grieve over many who formerly lived in sin and have not repented of their impurity, sexual immorality, and promiscuity that they once practiced.

With eyes full of adultery, they cannot get enough of sin. They seduce unsteady souls and have had their hearts expertly trained in greed. They are doomed to a curse.

your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be used as evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up treasures in these last days. Look! The wages that you kept back from the workers who harvested your fields are shouting out against you, and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of the Heavenly Armies. You have lived in luxury and pleasure on earth. You have fattened yourselves for the day of slaughter.

I noticed among the war spoils a beautiful mantle from Shinar, 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels. Because I wanted them, I took them, and they're buried in the ground inside my tent. The silver is underneath."

His sons did not follow Samuel's example. Instead, they pursued dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice.

But your eyes and heart are on nothing but your dishonest gain, shedding the blood of innocent people, and practicing oppression and extortion."

"Is it the right time for all of you to live in your own paneled houses while this house remains in ruins?"

They must be silenced, because they are the kind of people who ruin whole families by teaching what they should not teach in order to make money in a shameful way.

But look! There is joy and festivity, slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep, eating meat and drinking wine. "Let us eat and drink, you say, because we die tomorrow."

Don't associate with heavy drinkers or dine with gluttons,

Since they have lost all sense of shame, they have abandoned themselves to sensuality and practice every kind of sexual perversion without restraint.

For this reason, God delivered them to degrading passions as their females exchanged their natural sexual function for one that is unnatural. In the same way, their males also abandoned their natural sexual function toward females and burned with lust toward one another. Males committed indecent acts with males, and received within themselves the appropriate penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, because they did not think it worthwhile to keep knowing God fully, God delivered them to degraded minds to perform acts that should not be done. read more.
They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, quarreling, deceit, and viciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, haughty, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to their parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless.

You must realize, however, that in the last days difficult times will come. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unfeeling, uncooperative, slanderous, degenerate, brutal, hateful of what is good, read more.
traitors, reckless, conceited, and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

Then he said, "This is what I'll do. I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and I'll store all my grain and goods in them. Then I'll say to myself, "You've stored up plenty of good things for many years. Take it easy, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself."' But God told him, "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded back from you. Now who will get the things you've accumulated?' read more.
That's how it is with the person who stores up treasures for himself rather than with God."

Pleasure lovers become poor; loving wine and oil doesn't bring riches.

because the price of a whore is a loaf of bread, and an adulterous woman stalks a man's precious life.

because drunks and gluttons tend to become poor, and drowsiness will clothe them in rags.

A few days later, the younger son gathered everything he owned and traveled to a distant country. There he wasted it all on wild living. After he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went out to work for one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. read more.
No one would give him anything, even though he would gladly have filled himself with the husks the pigs were eating.

But the self-indulgent widow is just as good as dead.

but wrath and fury for those who in their selfish pride refuse to believe the truth and practice wickedness instead.

Why should you be intoxicated by an adulteress, my son, and embrace the bosom of a foreign woman? Indeed, what a man does is always in the LORD's presence, and he weighs all his paths.

Their destiny is destruction, their god is their belly, and their glory is in their shame. Their minds are set on worldly things.

About a year later, as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, he commented to himself, "Isn't Babylon great? I've built a royal palace in it by my own might and power, for the sake of my majesty." As these words were being spoken by the king, a voice came out of heaven: "King Nebuchadnezzar, this is declared to you:read more.
"The kingdom has been taken from you! You're to be driven away from people. You're to live with the wild animals of the field. You are to be made to eat grass like cattle, and seven years will pass you by until you realize that the Most High is sovereign over human kingdoms and grants them to whomever he desires.'"

"Listen to this message, you fat cows from Bashan, who live on the Samaritan mountains, who oppress the poor, who rob the needy, and who constantly ask your husbands for one more drink!" The Lord GOD has taken a sacred oath: "The day is coming when they will take you away on fishhooks, every last one of you on fishhooks.

lying on ivory beds, stretching out on your couches, eating lambs from the flock, and fattened calves from the stall, chanting to the sound of stringed instruments as if they were David, composing songs to themselves as if they were musicians, drinking wine from bowls, anointing themselves with the choicest of oils, but not grieving on the occasion of Joseph's ruin read more.
therefore you will be the first to go into exile, and the celebrations of those who are lounging will end."

Then I'll say to myself, "You've stored up plenty of good things for many years. Take it easy, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself."' But God told him, "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded back from you. Now who will get the things you've accumulated?'

"How terrible it will be for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but on the inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

Do not be conformed to this world, but continuously be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may be able to determine what God's will is what is proper, pleasing, and perfect.

"Don't handle this! Don't taste or touch that!" All of these things will be destroyed as they are used, because they are based on human commands and teachings. These things have the appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion, humility, and harsh treatment of the body, but they have no value against self-indulgence.

Instead, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, and do not obey your flesh and its desires.

Now those who belong to the Messiah Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people. It trains us to renounce ungodly living and worldly passions so that we might live sensible, honest, and godly lives in the present age

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will never fulfill the desires of the flesh.

Turn my heart to your decrees and away from unjust gain.

As obedient children, do not be shaped by the desires that used to influence you when you were ignorant.

so that he can live the rest of his mortal life guided, not by human desires, but by the will of God.

For it is God's will that you be sanctified: You must abstain from sexual immorality. Each of you must know how to control his own body in a holy and honorable manner, not with passion and lust like the gentiles who do not know God.

Don't exhaust yourself acquiring wealth; be smart enough to stop.

Everyone who enters an athletic contest practices self-control in everything. They do it to win a wreath that withers away, but we run to win a prize that never fades. That is the way I run, with a clear goal in mind. That is the way I fight, not like someone shadow boxing. No, I keep on disciplining my body, making it serve me so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not somehow be disqualified.

Because everything will soon come to an end, be sensible and clear-headed, so you can pray.

your knowledge with self-control, your self-control with endurance, your endurance with godliness,

So put to death your worldly impulses: sexual sin, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).

Daniel determined within himself not to become defiled by the king's menu of rich foods or by the king's wine, so he requested permission from the chief officer not to defile himself.

But I say to you, anyone who stares at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your body parts than to have your whole body thrown into hell.

Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and exiles to keep on abstaining from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul.

For you, brothers, were called to freedom. Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity to gratify your flesh, but through love make it your habit to serve one another.

Everything is permissible, but not everything is helpful. Everything is permissible, but not everything builds up. No one should seek his own welfare, but rather his neighbor's.

Do not act out of selfish ambition or conceit, but with humility think of others as being better than yourselves. Do not be concerned about your own interests, but also be concerned about the interests of others.

"If there should be a poor man among your relatives in one of the cities of the land that the LORD your God is about to give you, don't be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your poor relative. Instead, be sure to open your hand to him and lend him enough to lessen his need.

Later, Zacchaeus stood up and announced to the Lord, "Look! I'm giving half of my possessions to the destitute, and if I have accused anyone falsely, I'm repaying four times as much as I owe."