31 Bible Verses about Harlots

“Do not debase your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will be prostituted and filled with depravity.

Don’t let your heart turn aside to her ways;
don’t stray onto her paths.

It will rescue you from a forbidden woman,
from a stranger with her flattering talk,

In the days of King Josiah the Lord asked me, “Have you seen what unfaithful Israel has done? She has ascended every high hill and gone under every green tree to prostitute herself there. I thought: After she has done all these things, she will return to Me. But she didn’t return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. I observed that it was because unfaithful Israel had committed adultery that I had sent her away and had given her a certificate of divorce. Nevertheless, her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid but also went and prostituted herself. read more.
Indifferent to her prostitution, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.

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.

“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.

But come here,
you sons of a sorceress,
offspring of an adulterer and a prostitute!

In the days of King Josiah the Lord asked me, “Have you seen what unfaithful Israel has done? She has ascended every high hill and gone under every green tree to prostitute herself there.

Why should I forgive you?
Your children have abandoned Me
and sworn by those who are not gods.
I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery;
they gashed themselves at the prostitute’s house.

Yes, their mother is promiscuous;
she conceived them and acted shamefully.
For she thought, “I will go after my lovers,
the men who give me my food and water,
my wool and flax, my oil and drink.”

My people consult their wooden idols,
and their divining rods inform them.
For a spirit of promiscuity leads them astray;
they act promiscuously
in disobedience to their God.

“Oholah acted like a prostitute even though she was Mine. She lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians: warriors

Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria
and say, “As your god lives, Dan,”
or “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”—
they will fall, never to rise again.

All her carved images will be smashed to pieces;
all her wages will be burned in the fire,
and I will destroy all her idols.
Since she collected the wages of a prostitute,
they will be used again for a prostitute.

On her forehead a cryptic name was written:

BABYLON THE GREAT

THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES

AND OF THE VILE THINGS OF THE EARTH. Then I saw that the woman was drunk on the blood of the saints and on the blood of the witnesses to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly astonished. Then the angel said to me, “Why are you astonished? I will tell you the secret meaning of the woman and of the beast, with the seven heads and the 10 horns, that carries her.

This is why the showers haven’t come—
why there has been no spring rain.
You have the brazen look of a prostitute
and refuse to be ashamed.

She sits by the doorway of her house,
on a seat at the highest point of the city,
calling to those who pass by,
who go straight ahead on their paths:
“Whoever is inexperienced, enter here!”
To the one who lacks sense, she says,
read more.
“Stolen water is sweet,
and bread eaten secretly is tasty!”
But he doesn’t know that the departed spirits are there,
that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.

Now in the street, now in the squares,
she lurks at every corner.

A man who loves wisdom brings joy to his father,
but one who consorts with prostitutes destroys his wealth.

They trample the heads of the poor
on the dust of the ground
and block the path of the needy.
A man and his father have sexual relations
with the same girl,
profaning My holy name.

“Do not make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land, or else when they prostitute themselves with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, they will invite you, and you will eat their sacrifices. Then you will take some of their daughters as brides for your sons. Their daughters will prostitute themselves with their gods and cause your sons to prostitute themselves with their gods.

Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey
and her words are smoother than oil,
in the end she’s as bitter as wormwood
and as sharp as a double-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death;
her steps head straight for Sheol.
read more.
She doesn’t consider the path of life;
she doesn’t know that her ways are unstable. So now, my sons, listen to me,
and don’t turn away from the words of my mouth.
Keep your way far from her.
Don’t go near the door of her house.
Otherwise, you will give up your vitality to others
and your years to someone cruel;
strangers will drain your resources,
and your earnings will end up in a foreigner’s house.
At the end of your life, you will lament
when your physical body has been consumed,
and you will say, “How I hated discipline,
and how my heart despised correction.
I didn’t obey my teachers
or listen closely to my mentors.
I am on the verge of complete ruin
before the entire community.” Drink water from your own cistern,
water flowing from your own well.
Should your springs flow in the streets,
streams of water in the public squares?
They should be for you alone
and not for you to share with strangers.
Let your fountain be blessed,
and take pleasure in the wife of your youth.
A loving doe, a graceful fawn—
let her breasts always satisfy you;
be lost in her love forever.
Why, my son, would you be infatuated
with a forbidden woman
or embrace the breast of a stranger?

If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by promiscuity, she defiles her father; she must be burned up.

Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.” So she took off her widow’s clothes, veiled her face, covered herself, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had grown up, she had not been given to him as a wife. When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. read more.
He went over to her and said, “Come, let me sleep with you,” for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.

She said, “What will you give me for sleeping with me?” “I will send you a young goat from my flock,” he replied.

But she said, “Only if you leave something with me until you send it.” “What should I give you?” he asked.

She answered, “Your signet ring, your cord, and the staff in your hand.” So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she got pregnant by him. She got up and left, then removed her veil and put her widow’s clothes back on. When Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get back the items he had left with the woman, he could not find her.

Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two men as spies from the Acacia Grove, saying, “Go and scout the land, especially Jericho.” So they left, and they came to the house of a woman, a prostitute named Rahab, and stayed there. The king of Jericho was told, “Look, some of the Israelite men have come here tonight to investigate the land.” Then the king of Jericho sent word to Rahab and said, “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, for they came to investigate the entire land.” read more.
But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. So she said, “Yes, the men did come to me, but I didn’t know where they were from. At nightfall, when the gate was about to close, the men went out, and I don’t know where they were going. Chase after them quickly, and you can catch up with them!” But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them among the stalks of flax that she had arranged on the roof. The men pursued them along the road to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as they left to pursue them, the gate was shut. Before the men fell asleep, she went up on the roof and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and everyone who lives in the land is panicking because of you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings you completely destroyed across the Jordan. When we heard this, we lost heart, and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth below. Now please swear to me by the Lord that you will also show kindness to my family, because I showed kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father, mother, brothers, sisters, and all who belong to them, and save us from death.” The men answered her, “We will give our lives for yours. If you don’t report our mission, we will show kindness and faithfulness to you when the Lord gives us the land.” Then she let them down by a rope through the window, since she lived in a house that was built into the wall of the city. “Go to the hill country so that the men pursuing you won’t find you,” she said to them. “Hide yourselves there for three days until they return; afterward, go on your way.” The men said to her, “We will be free from this oath you made us swear, unless, when we enter the land, you tie this scarlet cord to the window through which you let us down. Bring your father, mother, brothers, and all your father’s family into your house. If anyone goes out the doors of your house, his blood will be on his own head, and we will be innocent. But if anyone with you in the house should be harmed, his blood will be on our heads. And if you report our mission, we are free from the oath you made us swear.” “Let it be as you say,” she replied, and she sent them away. After they had gone, she tied the scarlet cord to the window.

Jephthah the Gileadite was a great warrior, but he was the son of a prostitute, and Gilead was his father.

Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute and went to bed with her.

When the Lord first spoke to Hosea, He said this to him:

Go and marry a promiscuous wife
and have children of promiscuity,
for the land is committing blatant acts of promiscuity
by abandoning the Lord.

On that day Tyre will be forgotten for 70 years—the life span of one king. At the end of 70 years, what the song says about the prostitute will happen to Tyre: Pick up your lyre,
stroll through the city,
prostitute forgotten by men.
Play skillfully,
sing many a song,
and you will be thought of again. And at the end of the 70 years, the Lord will restore Tyre and she will go back into business, prostituting herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.

The faithful city—
what an adulteress she has become!
She was once full of justice.
Righteousness once dwelt in her—
but now, murderers!

You have placed your bed
on a high and lofty mountain;
you also went up there to offer sacrifice.
You have set up your memorial
behind the door and doorpost.
For away from Me, you stripped,
went up, and made your bed wide,
and you have made a bargain for yourself with them.
You have loved their bed;
you have gazed on their genitals.
You went to the king with oil
and multiplied your perfumes;
you sent your couriers far away
and sent them down even to Sheol.