0 Chapters0 Books0 People0 Places

Adultery

Sexual unfaithfulness within a covenant marriage; a serious moral and covenantal violation addressed in the Ten Commandments and in Jesus's teaching on divorce and lust

lightbulbA-DULL-tery — it looks exciting but makes everything in your life dull and broken

12 mentions across 10 books

Sexual unfaithfulness within marriage, and by extension, Israel's spiritual unfaithfulness to God. The prophets (especially Hosea and Ezekiel) use adultery as a metaphor for idolatry — chasing after other gods instead of staying loyal to Yahweh.

Used In

2 samuel

A Clean Record Before God2 Samuel 22:21-25

Adultery is referenced here as the gravest stain on David's record, the sin that makes his righteousness claim require careful interpretation — he fell hard, but he never walked away from God.

deuteronomy

The Weight of UnfaithfulnessDeuteronomy 22:20-22

Adultery is addressed directly here — the law prescribes death for both parties in a case of a man sleeping with another man's wife, underscoring that both bore equal moral accountability.

exodus

How to Live Next to Each OtherExodus 20:13-17

Adultery appears in the list as the second of the five social commandments, placed between murder and theft to show its gravity as a covenant violation — private but deeply destructive to the communal fabric.

hosea

A Son Named "Not My People"Hosea 1:8-9

Adultery is the governing metaphor for Israel's idolatry — used here to characterize the covenant betrayal as a marital one, which is exactly what Hosea's own marriage has been designed to illustrate.

isaiah

"But I Will Heal Him"Isaiah 57:17-19

Adultery is invoked here as a metaphor for Israel's spiritual betrayal — the covenantal intimacy they owed to God alone was given to idols and foreign powers, making their unfaithfulness a form of sacred betrayal.

Show 5 more books ▸

malachi

The Judgment ListMalachi 3:5

Adultery appears in God's specific judgment list as a covenant violation alongside fraud, sorcery, and exploitation — demonstrating that sexual faithfulness is inseparable from the broader integrity God demands.

matthew

The Messy MiddleMatthew 1:6b-11

Adultery is the unspoken charge hanging over the reference to 'the wife of Uriah' — the sin David committed that Matthew refuses to omit from the official record.

numbers

The Hardest Situation in a MarriageNumbers 5:11-15

Adultery is the suspected but unproven act at the center of this passage — the ritual exists precisely because there are no witnesses, creating a situation where only divine judgment can resolve the accusation.

Adultery is here contrasted with theft to make the point that its damage cannot be paid back — unlike a stolen loaf, what is destroyed by sexual betrayal has no restitution price.

romans

The Only Debt That Never Gets PaidRomans 13:8-10

Adultery appears here as Paul's first example in a list of commandments he then collapses into love — each violation on the list is simply a specific way of harming someone, which love by definition refuses to do.