1. Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman.
2. But because of much immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.
3. Let the husband fulfill his obligation to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband.
4. The wife does not have the rights to her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband does not have the rights to his own body, but the wife.
5. Do not deprive one another—except by mutual consent for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again, so that satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
6. But this I say as a concession, not as a command.
7. Yet I wish that all men were like me. However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this way and another that.
8. But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them to remain as I am.
9. But if they do not have self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with desire.
10. But to the married I command—not I, but the Lord—a wife is not to be separated from her husband
11. (but if she gets separated, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband is not to divorce his wife.
12. But to the rest I say—I, not the Lord—if any brother has a wife who is not a believer, and she agrees to live with him, he must not divorce her.
13. And if any woman has a husband who is not a believer, and he agrees to live with her, she must not divorce him.