Reference: Fornication
American
This word is used in Scripture not only for the sin of impurity between unmarried persons, but for idolatry, and for all kinds of infidelity to God. In Eze 16, the Jewish church is symbolized as a female infant, growing up to womanhood, and then wedded to Jehovah by covenant. When she breaks her covenant by going after idols, she is justly reproached as an adulteress and a harlot, Jer 2:20; 3:8-9; Ho 3:1. Adultery and fornication are frequently confounded. Both the Old and New Testaments condemn all impurity and fornication, corporeal and spiritual-idolatry , apostasy, heresy, and infidelity. See ADULTERY.
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"For long ago I broke your yoke And tore off your bonds; But you said, 'I will not serve!' For on every high hill And under every green tree You have lain down as a harlot.
"And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also. "Because of the lightness of her harlotry, she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.
Then the LORD said to me, "Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes."
Easton
in every form of it was sternly condemned by the Mosaic law (Le 21:9; 19:29; De 22:20-21,23-29; 23:18; Ex 22:16). (See Adultery.)
But this word is more frequently used in a symbolical than in its ordinary sense. It frequently means a forsaking of God or a following after idols (Isa 1:2; Jer 2:20; Eze 16; Ho 1:2; 2:1-5; Jer 3:8-9).
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"If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife.
'Do not profane your daughter by making her a harlot, so that the land will not fall to harlotry and the land become full of lewdness.
'Also the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by harlotry, she profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire.
"But if this charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father's house; thus you shall purge the evil from among you.
"If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor's wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you. read more. "But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die. "But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case. "When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her. "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.
"You shall not bring the hire of a harlot or the wages of a dog into the house of the LORD your God for any votive offering, for both of these are an abomination to the LORD your God.
Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth; For the LORD speaks, "Sons I have reared and brought up, But they have revolted against Me.
"For long ago I broke your yoke And tore off your bonds; But you said, 'I will not serve!' For on every high hill And under every green tree You have lain down as a harlot.
"And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also. "Because of the lightness of her harlotry, she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.
When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, "Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the LORD."
Say to your brothers, "Ammi," and to your sisters, "Ruhamah." "Contend with your mother, contend, For she is not my wife, and I am not her husband; And let her put away her harlotry from her face And her adultery from between her breasts, read more. Or I will strip her naked And expose her as on the day when she was born I will also make her like a wilderness, Make her like desert land And slay her with thirst. "Also, I will have no compassion on her children, Because they are children of harlotry. "For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has acted shamefully For she said, 'I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.'
Fausets
Used for adultery (Mt 5:32). Also spiritual unfaithfulness to the Lord, Israel's and the church's husband (Ezekiel 16; Jeremiah 2; Hosea 1; Re 17:4).
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but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality,
Hastings
Morish
This was very common among the Gentiles, which accounts for its being mentioned in the message sent from the conference at Jerusalem to the Gentiles, Ac 15:20,29; and its being so often prohibited in the epistles. The word is sometimes used where 'adultery' is the sense. Mt 5:32; 19:9. It often has in the O.T. a symbolical reference to the turning from God to idols. 2Ch 21:11,13; Isa 23:17; Eze 16:15,26,29; and in the N.T. to unfaithful intercourse with Babylon, the mother of harlots. 4/8'>Re 14:8; 17:2,4; 18:3,9.
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Moreover, he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot and led Judah astray.
but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and have caused Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot as the house of Ahab played the harlot, and you have also killed your brothers, your own family, who were better than you,
It will come about at the end of seventy years that the LORD will visit Tyre Then she will go back to her harlot's wages and will play the harlot with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.
"But you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your fame, and you poured out your harlotries on every passer-by who might be willing.
"You also played the harlot with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, and multiplied your harlotry to make Me angry.
"You also multiplied your harlotry with the land of merchants, Chaldea, yet even with this you were not satisfied."'"
but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
"And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery."
but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood.
that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell."
And another angel, a second one, followed, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her immorality."
with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality."
The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality,
"For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality."
Watsons
FORNICATION, whoredom, or the act of incontinency between single persons; for if either of the parties be married, the sin is adultery.