44 Bible Verses about Singleness
Most Relevant Verses
The young woman’s father will say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, but he hates her.
Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.
“When a woman in her father’s house during her youth makes a vow to the Lord or puts herself under an obligation, and her father hears about her vow or the obligation she put herself under, and he says nothing to her, all her vows and every obligation she put herself under are binding. But if her father prohibits her on the day he hears about it, none of her vows and none of the obligations she put herself under are binding. The Lord will absolve her because her father has prohibited her.
Caleb said, “Whoever strikes down and captures Kiriath-sepher, I will give my daughter Achsah to him as a wife.” So Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s youngest brother, captured it, and Caleb gave his daughter Achsah to him as his wife.
Saul told David, “Here is my oldest daughter Merab. I’ll give her to you as a wife, if you will be a warrior for me and fight the Lord’s battles.” But Saul was thinking, “My hand doesn’t need to be against him; let the hand of the Philistines be against him.”
He may make himself unclean for his young unmarried sister in his immediate family.
Rebekah is here in front of you. Take her and go, and let her be a wife for your master’s son, just as the Lord has spoken.”
“We cannot do this thing,” they said to them. “Giving our sister to an uncircumcised man is a disgrace to us. We will agree with you only on this condition: if all your males are circumcised as we are.
A priest may not come near a dead person so that he becomes defiled. However, he may defile himself for a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, a brother, or an unmarried sister.
She said to them, “Each of you go back to your mother’s home. May the Lord show faithful love to you as you have shown to the dead and to me. May the Lord enable each of you to find security in the house of your new husband.” She kissed them, and they wept loudly. “No,” they said to her. “We will go with you to your people.” read more.
But Naomi replied, “Return home, my daughters. Why do you want to go with me? Am I able to have any more sons who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters. Go on, for I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me to have a husband tonight and to bear sons, would you be willing to wait for them to grow up? Would you restrain yourselves from remarrying? No, my daughters, my life is much too bitter for you to share, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me.”
Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up.” For he thought, “He might die too, like his brothers.” So Tamar went to live in her father’s house.
But if the priest’s daughter becomes widowed or divorced, has no children, and returns to her father’s house as in her youth, she may share her father’s food. But no outsider may share it.
But she was unfaithful to him and left him for her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah. She was there for a period of four months.
Has any man become engaged to a woman and not married her? Let him leave and return home. Otherwise he may die in battle and another man marry her.’
But if this accusation is true and no evidence of the young woman’s virginity is found, they will bring the woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city will stone her to death. For she has committed an outrage in Israel by being promiscuous in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from you.
She also said to her father, “Let me do this one thing: Let me wander two months through the mountains with my friends and mourn my virginity.” “Go,” he said. And he sent her away two months. So she left with her friends and mourned her virginity as she wandered through the mountains. At the end of two months, she returned to her father, and he kept the vow he had made about her. And she had never been intimate with a man. Now it became a custom in Israel
For the Lord has called you,
like a wife deserted and wounded in spirit,
a wife of one’s youth when she is rejected,”
says your God.
Then the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man in the land to sleep with us as is the custom of all the land. Come, let’s get our father to drink wine so that we can sleep with him and preserve our father’s line.”
Yet as you listen, the children
that you have been deprived of will say,
‘This place is too small for me;
make room for me so that I may settle.’
Then you will say within yourself,
‘Who fathered these for me?
I was deprived of my children and unable to conceive,
exiled and wandering—
but who brought them up?
See, I was left by myself—
but these, where did they come from?’”
You will no longer be called Deserted,
and your land will not be called Desolate;
instead, you will be called My Delight is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the Lord delights in you,
and your land will be married.
Rebuke your mother; rebuke her.
For she is not My wife and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the promiscuous look from her face
and her adultery from between her breasts.
For it is written:
Rejoice, childless woman,
who does not give birth.
Burst into song and shout,
you who are not in labor,
for the children of the desolate are many,
more numerous than those
of the woman who has a husband.
“Rejoice, childless one, who did not give birth;
burst into song and shout,
you who have not been in labor!
For the children of the forsaken one will be more
than the children of the married woman,”
says the Lord.
I wish that all people were just like me. But each has his own gift from God, one person in this way and another in that way.
His disciples said to Him, “If the relationship of a man with his wife is like this, it’s better not to marry!” But He told them, “Not everyone can accept this saying, but only those it has been given to. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb, there are eunuchs who were made by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves that way because of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”
But if they do not have self-control, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with desire.
But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when they are drawn away from Christ by desire, they want to marry and will therefore receive condemnation because they have renounced their original pledge. At the same time, they also learn to be idle, going from house to house; they are not only idle, but are also gossips and busybodies, saying things they shouldn’t say. read more.
Therefore, I want younger women to marry, have children, manage their households, and give the adversary no opportunity to accuse us.
About virgins: I have no command from the Lord, but I do give an opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. Therefore I consider this to be good because of the present distress: It is fine for a man to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife. read more.
However, if you do get married, you have not sinned, and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But such people will have trouble in this life, and I am trying to spare you.
I command the married—not I, but the Lord—a wife is not to leave her husband.
But because sexual immorality is so common, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband. A husband should fulfill his marital responsibility to his wife, and likewise a wife to her husband. A wife does not have the right over her own body, but her husband does. In the same way, a husband does not have the right over his own body, but his wife does. read more.
Do not deprive one another sexually—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 the following as a concession, not as a command.
He said to the people, “Be prepared by the third day. Do not have sexual relations with women.”
The priest told him, “There is no ordinary bread on hand. However, there is consecrated bread, but the young men may eat it only if they have kept themselves from women.” David answered him, “I swear that women are being kept from us, as always when I go out to battle. The young men’s bodies are consecrated even on an ordinary mission, so of course their bodies are consecrated today.”
Now in response to the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have relations with a woman.”
I want you to be without concerns. An unmarried man is concerned about the things of the Lord—how he may please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the things of the world—how he may please his wife— and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the things of the world—how she may please her husband. read more.
Now I am saying this for your own benefit, not to put a restraint on you, but because of what is proper and so that you may be devoted to the Lord without distraction.
The real widow, left all alone, has put her hope in God and continues night and day in her petitions and prayers;
For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.
For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.
But those who are counted worthy to take part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.
And I say this, brothers: The time is limited, so from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none, those who weep as though they did not weep, those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice, those who buy as though they did not possess, and those who use the world as though they did not make full use of it. For this world in its current form is passing away.
