Adultery.

If you made it this far, you have probably read all the quotes condemning adultery.

It is a serious sin. Who indeed is my neighbour Jesus was asked? We are not allowed to covet our Neighbour’s wife.

Jesus replied our Neighbour is anyone who needs our help.

In today’s world, there are many relationships that are not marriage, but are similar to marriage. The Church has also taught respecting pagan marriages, even if they are not sacramental.

Therefore, cheating, swinging, polyamory, taking someone’s partner, girlfriend or boyfriend - these are all wrong behaviours.

On the topic of boyfriends and girlfriends, traditional Catholics support honourable courtship instead - but ultimately this is very rare in today’s world.

Nevertheless, we should respect all established relationships insofar as they resemble the love of God for his Church.

The answer is to encourage marriage, not to cruelly separate and rip people apart. Many people are unchurched, or have never been taught the importance of marriage.

Christians in contact with their fellow man should help guide and promote marriage.

Cheating, adultery, seducing what does not belong to you is wrong.

You have probably read that marriage resembles God and Israel, or Jesus and His Church. Adultery, seperation all disfigure this image.

This is not to say the children of marriages resulting from unstable relationships are to be condemned - it is not their fault. They probably need more love and support than other children.

Instead, we should encourage everyone to respect the principles of monogamy and marriage.

It comes back to the 10 Commandments - what does not belong to you, you are not to take or to steal, or to secretly desire. And if you are doing that, you need to separate yourself from the situation in a kind & Christian way.

Being a “player” or a “ladies man” is simply being a thief. It puts terrible emotional pressure on women to cheat, and humiliates the innocent man.

Those who do that are thugs and cheats - they in no way resemble Christians. It can even resemble emotional rape.

And women who seduce other men (or today - other women) are being psychologically and even physically violent as well.

The rules of consent should always be respected - “Go away, I do not want you” must be listened to and followed.

Stalking, pressurizing, encouraging secret and guilty relationships to the hurt and harm of others is completely wrong and sinful.

1. Book of Proverbs – Strongest and most repeated warnings

Proverbs was written in large part as a father’s instruction to his son about avoiding destructive women.

• Proverbs 5:3–6, 20–23 (NIV) “For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave… Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife? Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman? … For your ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines all your paths. The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them; the cords of their sins hold them fast. For lack of discipline they will die, led astray by their own great folly.”

• Proverbs 6:24–29, 32 “…keeping you from your neighbor’s wife, from the smooth talk of a wayward woman. Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes… Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? … But a man who commits adultery has no sense; whoever does so destroys himself.”

• Proverbs 7:6–27 (the entire chapter is a vivid story of a young man seduced by a promiscuous married woman who leads him “like an ox going to the slaughter” to his ruin).

• Proverbs 22:14 “The mouth of an adulterous woman is a deep pit; a man who is under the LORD’s wrath will fall into it.”

• Proverbs 23:27–28 “For an adulterous woman is a deep pit, and a wayward wife is a narrow well. Like a bandit she lies in wait and multiplies the unfaithful among men.”

2. Other Old Testament warnings

• Ecclesiastes 7:26 “I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare.”

3. New Testament

While the New Testament focuses more on positive instructions for marriage and mutual love in marriage, it still warns strongly against sexual immorality and “evil” companions:

• 1 Corinthians 6:15–18 “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! … Flee from sexual immorality.”

• 2 Timothy 3:6–7 (speaking of false teachers who target vulnerable women, but also describes “weak-willed women” loaded with sins and swayed by evil desires).

• Revelation 2:20–23 (Jesus rebukes the church in Thyatira for tolerating “Jezebel,” a woman who misleads believers into sexual immorality).

4. Positive counterpart – What kind of woman to love instead

The Bible repeatedly contrasts the dangerous woman with the “wife of noble character”:

• Proverbs 31:10–31 (the famous “virtuous woman” passage)

• Proverbs 12:4 “A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.”

• Proverbs 19:14 “Houses and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the LORD.”