5. Do not refuse and deprive and defraud each other [of your due marital rights], except perhaps by mutual consent for a time, so that you may devote yourselves unhindered to prayer. But afterwards resume marital relations, lest Satan tempt you [to sin] through your lack of restraint of sexual desire. [Exod. 19:15.]
6. But I am saying this more as a matter of permission and concession, not as a command or regulation.
7. I wish that all men were like I myself am [in this matter of self-control]. But each has his own special gift from God, one of this kind and one of another.
8. But to the unmarried people and to the widows, I declare that it is well (good, advantageous, expedient, and wholesome) for them to remain [single] even as I do.
9. But if they have not self-control (restraint of their passions), they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame [with passion and tortured continually with ungratified desire].
10. But to the married people I give charge–not I but the Lord–that the wife is not to separate from her husband.
11. But if she does [separate from and divorce him], let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband. And [I charge] the husband [also] that he should not put away or divorce his wife.
12. To the rest I declare–I, not the Lord [for Jesus did not discuss this]–that if any brother has a wife who does not believe [in Christ] and she consents to live with him, he should not leave or divorce her.