³⁴ And Jesus said to them, The sons of this world are married and have wives;

⁸ And his lord was pleased with the false servant, because he had been wise; for the sons of this world are wiser in relation to their generation than the sons of light.

²⁷ They were feasting and taking wives and getting married, till the day of the overflowing of the waters, when Noah went into the ark, and they all came to destruction.

² But because of the desires of the flesh, let every man have his wife, and every woman her husband.

³ Let the husband give to the wife what is right; and let the wife do the same to the husband.

⁴ The wife has not power over her body, but the husband; and in the same way the husband has not power over his body, but the wife.

⁵ Do not keep back from one another what is right, but only for a short time, and by agreement, so that you may give yourselves to prayer, and come together again; so that Satan may not get the better of you through your loss of self-control.

⁶ But this I say as my opinion, and not as an order of the Lord.

⁷ It is my desire that all men might be even as I am. But every man has the power of his special way of life given him by God, one in this way and one in that.

⁸ But I say to the unmarried and to the widows, It is good for them to be even as I am.

⁹ But if they have not self-control let them get married; for married life is better than the burning of desire.

¹⁰ But to the married I give orders, though not I but the Lord, that the wife may not go away from her husband

¹¹ (Or if she goes away from him, let her keep unmarried, or be united to her husband again); and that the husband may not go away from his wife.

¹² But to the rest I say, and not the Lord; If a brother has a wife who is not a Christian, and it is her desire to go on living with him, let him not go away from her.

¹³ And if a woman has a husband who is not a Christian, and it is his desire to go on living with her, let her not go away from her husband.

¹⁴ For the husband who has not faith is made holy through his Christian wife, and the wife who is not a Christian is made holy through the brother: if not, your children would be unholy, but now are they holy.

¹⁵ But if the one who is not a Christian has a desire to go away, let it be so: the brother or the sister in such a position is not forced to do one thing or the other: but it is God's pleasure that we may be at peace with one another.

¹⁶ For how may you be certain, O wife, that you will not be the cause of salvation to your husband? or you, O husband, that you may not do the same for your wife?

³¹ For this cause will a man go away from his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

⁴ Let married life be honoured among all of you and not made unclean; for men untrue in married life will be judged by God.