Principles for Marriage
1 Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: t“It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”
6 Now as a concession, xnot a command, I say this.1 7 yI wish that all were zas I myself am. But aeach has his own gift from God, bone of one kind and one of another.
The Unmarried and the Widowed
25 Now concerning1 the betrothed,2 xI have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as yone who by the Lord’s mercy is ztrustworthy. 26 I think that in view of the present3 distress ait is good for a person to remain as he is. 27 Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. 28 But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman4 marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that.
32 I want you to be efree from anxieties. fThe unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. 33 But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, 34 and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. 35 I say this for your own benefit, gnot to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.
39 iA wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only jin the Lord. 40 Yet kin my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think lthat I too have the Spirit of God.
