Thematic Bible: Sexual activities


Thematic Bible




“A man is not to marry his father’s wife; he must not violate his father’s marriage bed.

"You are not to come near any close relative for sexual intercourse; I am the Lord. You are not to shame your father by having sex with your mother. She is your mother; you must not have sexual intercourse with her. You are not to have sex with your father's wife; it will shame your father. read more.
You are not to have sexual intercourse with your sister, either your father's daughter or your mother's, whether born at home or born elsewhere. You are not to have sex with her. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your son's daughter or your daughter's daughter, because it will shame your family. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your father's wife's daughter, who is adopted by your father; she is your sister. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your father's sister; she is your father's close relative. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your mother's sister, for she is your mother's close relative. You are not to shame your father's brother by coming near his wife to have sexual intercourse; she is your aunt. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your daughter-in-law. She is your son's wife; you are not to have sex with her. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your brother's wife; it will shame your brother. You are not to have sexual intercourse with a woman and her daughter. You are not to marry her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter and have sex with her. They are close relatives; it is depraved. You are not to marry a woman as a rival to her sister and have sexual intercourse with her during her [sister's] lifetime. "You are not to come near a woman during her menstrual impurity to have sexual intercourse with her. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your neighbor's wife, defiling yourself with her.

You must not have sexual intercourse with your mother’s sister or your father’s sister, for it is exposing one’s own blood relative; both people will bear their punishment.

"No Israelite woman is to be a cult prostitute, and no Israelite man is to be a cult prostitute. Do not bring a female prostitute's wages or a male prostitute's earnings into the house of the Lord your God to fulfill any vow, because both are detestable to the Lord your God.


For this is God's will, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality, so that each of you knows how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not with lustful desires, like the Gentiles who don't know God.


Therefore, put to death whatever in you is worldly: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, God's wrath comes on the disobedient,

For know and recognize this: no sexually immoral or impure or greedy person, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of the Messiah and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty arguments, for because of these things God's wrath is coming on the disobedient. Therefore, do not become their partners.


Before they went to bed, the men of the city of Sodom, both young and old, the whole population, surrounded the house. They called out to Lot and said, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Send them out to us so we can have sex with them!" Lot went out to them at the entrance and shut the door behind him. read more.
He said, "Don't do [this] evil, my brothers. Look, I've got two daughters who haven't had sexual relations with a man. I'll bring them out to you, and you can do whatever you want to them. However, don't do anything to these men, because they have come under the protection of my roof." "Get out of the way!" they said, adding, "This one came here as a foreigner, but he's acting like a judge! Now we'll do more harm to you than to them." They put pressure on Lot and came up to break down the door. But the angels reached out, brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. They struck the men who were at the door of the house, both young and old, with a blinding light so that they were unable to find the door. Then the angels said to Lot, "Do you have anyone else here: a son-in-law, your sons and daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of this place, for we are about to destroy this place because the outcry against its people is great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it." So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were going to marry his daughters. "Get up," he said. "Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city!" But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

"Then after all your evil-Woe, woe to you!"-the declaration of the Lord God - "you built yourself a mound and made yourself an elevated place in every square. You built your elevated place at the head of every street and turned your beauty into an abomination. You spread your legs to everyone who passed by and increased your prostitution. read more.
You engaged in promiscuous acts with Egyptian men, your well-endowed neighbors, and increased your prostitution to provoke Me to anger.


If a man sleeps with his father's wife, he has shamed his father. Both of them must be put to death; their blood is on their own hands. If a man sleeps with his daughter-in-law, both of them must be put to death. They have acted perversely; their blood is on their own hands.

‘The one who sleeps with his father’s wife is cursed, for he has violated his father’s marriage bed.’
And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’



If a man has sexual intercourse with an animal, he must be put to death; you are also to kill the animal. If a woman comes near any animal and mates with it, you are to kill the woman and the animal. They must be put to death; their [own] blood is on them.

‘The one who has sexual intercourse with any animal is cursed.’
And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’



In the same way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them committed sexual immorality and practiced perversions, just as they did, and serve as an example by undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Nevertheless, these dreamers likewise defile their flesh, despise authority, and blaspheme glorious beings. Yet Michael the archangel, when he was disputing with the Devil in a debate about Moses' body, did not dare bring an abusive condemnation against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" read more.
But these people blaspheme anything they don't understand, and what they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals-they destroy themselves with these things. Woe to them! For they have traveled in the way of Cain, have abandoned themselves to the error of Balaam for profit, and have perished in Korah's rebellion. These are the ones who are like dangerous reefs at your love feasts. They feast with you, nurturing only themselves without fear. They are waterless clouds carried along by winds; trees in late autumn-fruitless, twice dead, pulled out by the roots; wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shameful deeds; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever! And Enoch, in the seventh [generation] from Adam, prophesied about them: Look! The Lord comes with thousands of His holy ones to execute judgment on all, and to convict them of all their ungodly deeds that they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things ungodly sinners have said against Him. These people are discontented grumblers, walking according to their desires; their mouths utter arrogant words, flattering people for their own advantage.

Now we know that the law is good, provided one uses it legitimately. We know that the law is not meant for a righteous person, but for the lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinful, for the unholy and irreverent, for those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral and homosexuals, for kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and for whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching


"When a man seduces a virgin who was not promised in marriage, and he has sexual relations with her, he must certainly pay the bridal price for her to be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must pay an amount in silver equal to the bridal price for virgins.

If a man encounters a young woman, a virgin who is not engaged, takes hold of her and rapes her, and they are discovered, the man who raped her must give the young woman's father 50 silver [shekels], and she must become his wife because he violated her. He cannot divorce her as long as he lives.


“If a man has sexual intercourse with a woman who is a slave designated for another man, but she has not been redeemed or given her freedom, there must be punishment. They are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed.

If there is a young woman who is a virgin engaged to a man, and [another] man encounters her in the city and has sex with her, you must take the two of them out to the gate of that city and stone them to death-the young woman because she did not cry out in the city and the man because he has violated his neighbor's fiance. You must purge the evil from you.


I am Yahweh your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. "But My people did not listen to Me; Israel did not obey Me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own plans.

For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. read more.
Therefore God delivered them over in the cravings of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. This is why God delivered them over to degrading passions. For even their females exchanged natural sexual intercourse for what is unnatural. The males in the same way also left natural sexual intercourse with females and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty for their perversion. And because they did not think it worthwhile to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them over to a worthless mind to do what is morally wrong. They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, disputes, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful. Although they know full well God's just sentence-that those who practice such things deserve to die-they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them.


In the same way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them committed sexual immorality and practiced perversions, just as they did, and serve as an example by undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Nevertheless, these dreamers likewise defile their flesh, despise authority, and blaspheme glorious beings. Yet Michael the archangel, when he was disputing with the Devil in a debate about Moses' body, did not dare bring an abusive condemnation against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" read more.
But these people blaspheme anything they don't understand, and what they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals-they destroy themselves with these things. Woe to them! For they have traveled in the way of Cain, have abandoned themselves to the error of Balaam for profit, and have perished in Korah's rebellion. These are the ones who are like dangerous reefs at your love feasts. They feast with you, nurturing only themselves without fear. They are waterless clouds carried along by winds; trees in late autumn-fruitless, twice dead, pulled out by the roots; wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shameful deeds; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever! And Enoch, in the seventh [generation] from Adam, prophesied about them: Look! The Lord comes with thousands of His holy ones to execute judgment on all, and to convict them of all their ungodly deeds that they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things ungodly sinners have said against Him. These people are discontented grumblers, walking according to their desires; their mouths utter arrogant words, flattering people for their own advantage.



"Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods," but God will do away with both of them. The body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. Do you not know that your bodies are the members of Christ? So should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Absolutely not! read more.
Do you not know that anyone joined to a prostitute is one body with her? For it says, The two will become one flesh. But anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee from sexual immorality! "Every sin a person can commit is outside the body," but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body.

About the things you wrote: "It is good for a man not to have relations with a woman." But because of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband. A husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise a wife to her husband. read more.
A wife does not have authority over her own body, but her husband does. Equally, a husband does not have authority over his own body, but his wife does. Do not deprive one another-except when you agree, for a time, to devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again; otherwise, Satan may tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all people were just like me. But each has his own gift from God, one this and another that. I say to the unmarried and to widows: It is good for them if they remain as I am. But if they do not have self-control, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with desire.


If a man sleeps with a menstruating woman and has sexual intercourse with her, he has exposed the source of her flow, and she has uncovered the source of her blood. Both of them must be cut off from their people.

"When a woman has a discharge, and it consists of blood from her body, she will be unclean because of her menstruation for seven days. Everyone who touches her will be unclean until evening. Anything she lies on during her menstruation will become unclean, and anything she sits on will become unclean. Everyone who touches her bed is to wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will remain unclean until evening. read more.
Everyone who touches any furniture she was sitting on is to wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will remain unclean until evening. If discharge is on the bed or the furniture she was sitting on, when he touches it he will be unclean until evening. If a man sleeps with her, and [blood from] her menstruation gets on him, he will be unclean for seven days, and every bed he lies on will become unclean.


But if the man encounters the engaged woman in the open country, and he seizes and rapes her, only the man who raped her must die. Do nothing to the young woman, because she is not guilty of an offense deserving death. This case is just like one in which a man attacks his neighbor and murders him. When he found her in the field, the engaged woman cried out, but there was no one to rescue her.


Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers.