12 Bible Verses About Love and Marriage, and Who First Said Each One

One of the best-known wedding readings in English was first said on a road out of Moab by a widow to her mother-in-law. Ruth had lost her husband. Naomi, who had lost hers and both her sons, told Ruth to go back to her own people, as her other daughter-in-law had done. Ruth refused, and what she said ("where you go I will go") has been read over brides and grooms ever since. Nothing in the story is about a wedding, and that does not make it the wrong choice. It does mean that the people choosing it should know what it is.

This page collects twelve passages about love and marriage and gives each one the same treatment: the exact wording in the English Standard Version, who is speaking and to whom, what the popular version tends to leave out, and where it works best (a ceremony reading, a card, an anniversary note, or a year that has been hard). Every verse below was checked word for word against the published ESV text. Where the King James wording is the one most people remember, it is quoted too.

Where the Bible First Talks About Marriage

It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.

— Genesis 2:18, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001)

This is the first time anything in the Bible is called "not good." Genesis 1 calls what God makes "good" again and again; here the story stops on one problem: a person by himself. The word translated "helper" is the Hebrew 'ezer, and it does not mean an assistant. Of its 21 uses in the Hebrew Bible, most describe God, as in Psalm 121:2 ("My help comes from the LORD") and Psalm 33:20 ("he is our help and our shield"), according to the Strong's concordance entry for the word. The ESV footnote offers "corresponding to" for "fit for," so the sense is a partner who matches, not one who serves. The King James phrase "an help meet for him" is where the English word "helpmeet" came from, by running two words together.

Use it when you want to say that a marriage answers a real need, not only a wish. It suits a toast better than a card, because it needs a sentence of explanation to land.

But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

— Mark 10:6–9, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001)

Jesus says this in answer to a hostile question. Mark 10:2 says Pharisees came "in order to test him" and asked whether a man may divorce his wife. Instead of arguing about the rules for divorce in the Law of Moses, he goes back to Genesis and quotes it twice (1:27 and 2:24), then adds the line still said at many church weddings. Two details are worth knowing. The ESV notes that some manuscripts leave out "and hold fast to his wife" in verse 7. And modern translations say "separate," while the familiar "put asunder" is the King James wording of 1611. Genesis 2:24 on its own, and the way Ecclesiastes 4 talks about two people facing hardship together, are covered on our page of Bible verses about love and unity.

Desire, Written Down Without Apology

The Song of Solomon (also called the Song of Songs) is a collection of love poems in which a woman and a man speak to each other, with a chorus of friends. God is not named in it except, arguably, in one word of 8:6. Its first line calls it "the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's," a phrase that can mean by, for or about Solomon, so this page does not put a date or an author on it.

You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride; you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace.

— Song of Solomon 4:9, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001)

The man is speaking. "Sister" here is a term of endearment, not a family relationship: Egyptian love poems from roughly the same world use "my sister" and "my brother" for lovers in exactly this way, as Michael V. Fox showed in The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985). If you quote it on a card, "you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes" works without the "sister," and nobody will wonder about it.

I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine; he grazes among the lilies.

— Song of Solomon 6:3, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001)

The woman is speaking, and she says almost the same thing earlier in reversed order: "My beloved is mine, and I am his" (2:16). The belonging goes both ways, with neither voice in charge. That is why the first half is so often engraved inside rings, sometimes in Hebrew. The second half, about grazing among lilies, is the poem's own imagery for the lover's presence and is usually dropped. That is fine, as long as the reference on the card says 6:3a, or simply 6:3.

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.

— Song of Solomon 8:6–7, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001)

A seal was a personal stamp worn on a cord or a ring and pressed into clay or wax as a signature. To ask to be set as a seal on someone's heart is to ask to be what they sign with. The wedding version usually stops after "strong as death" and skips the jealousy line, which the ESV footnote says can also be read as "ardor." Its "grave" stands for the Hebrew Sheol, the place of the dead, so the pairing is deliberate: love and its fierce exclusiveness are as hard to escape as death. "The very flame of the LORD" is the one place the book may name God. Verse 7 is the line to choose if you want something short that still has weight.

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Proverbs and Ecclesiastes on the Ordinary Years

The wisdom books talk about marriage as something lived over decades, among work and money and temptation. These are the verses for a fortieth anniversary more than a first dance.

Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.

— Proverbs 5:18–19, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001)

The chapter is a father's warning to his son about adultery, and these verses are the alternative he offers: find your delight at home, and keep finding it. The phrase "the wife of your youth" assumes years have passed. Most people quote only "rejoice in the wife of your youth," which is a lovely line for a long-married husband to write in a card. The rest is frank enough that it belongs in a private note, if anywhere.

He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD.

— Proverbs 18:22, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001)

Proverbs is a book of single-sentence observations, and this one is plain gratitude: a good marriage is a gift, not an achievement. It is one of the shortest marriage verses and fits on the inside of a card from a groom's family or on a cake topper. Because it is written from the husband's side, it reads oddly as a message to a groom, so give it to him to say rather than say it to him.

An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.

— Proverbs 31:10–12, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001)

Two facts change how this reads. First, Proverbs 31 opens with "The words of King Lemuel. An oracle that his mother taught him," so this is a mother's advice to her son about what to value in a wife. Second, the ESV notes that verses 10 to 31 are an acrostic, each verse beginning with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet: an A-to-Z of a capable woman who trades, buys land, plants a vineyard and speaks with wisdom. The point is respect for her competence, not a checklist for her to meet. A husband can quote verse 11 to his wife in an anniversary card; "the heart of her husband trusts in her" says more than most adjectives.

Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.

— Ecclesiastes 9:9, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001)

Ecclesiastes is the Bible's most skeptical book, and this is its advice in the middle of a passage about death being the same for everyone. "Vain" translates hebel, which the ESV footnote explains as "vapor" or "mere breath." So the verse does not say life is pointless; it says life is brief, and that the person you love is your share in it. The King James puts it as "Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest." It is the most honest verse on this page and, for a couple who have been through illness or loss, often the most welcome.

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Two Wedding Favorites Written About Something Else

Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.

— Ruth 1:16–17, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001)

As the opening of this page said, Ruth speaks these words to Naomi, her mother-in-law, after both of their husbands have died (Ruth 1:3–5, 1:15). It is a promise of loyalty between two women of different nations, made at the point when leaving would have been easier. Read at a wedding, it keeps its force: it is a vow made with nothing to gain, ending with an oath that only death will part them. Knowing the story tends to deepen it rather than spoil it. One sentence before the reading is enough to explain it, and the setting also makes it a natural choice for a mother-in-law to read, or for a blended family.

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Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

— 1 Corinthians 13:4–8a, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001)

Paul wrote this letter from Ephesus (16:8) to a church that was splitting into factions and competing over spiritual gifts. Chapters 12 and 14 are about speaking in tongues, prophecy and order in worship, and chapter 13 sits between them as a rebuke: the gifts are worthless without love. It was written to a congregation, not to a couple, and its list is a description of how to treat people you are irritated with. That is exactly why it works for a marriage. The King James Version translates the Greek agapē as "charity" here ("Charity suffereth long, and is kind"). William Tyndale had already used "love" in his 1520s New Testament, and Thomas More attacked him for it; the 1611 translators went back to "charity." If you print the KJV wording at a wedding today, many guests will not recognize "charity" as love, so a modern translation is the clearer choice for a reading.

Ephesians 5, Read From Verse 21

…submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. … Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. … However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

— Ephesians 5:21, 25, 33, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (2001)

This is the passage people argue about, so it is worth reading the whole of verses 21 to 33 before using any of it. It begins with mutual submission ("to one another") and then addresses wives and husbands in turn. Most of the words go to the husbands, and what is asked of them is self-sacrifice on the model of a death, not authority. Verse 31 quotes Genesis 2:24 again, and verse 32 says plainly that the writer is using marriage to talk about "Christ and the church," so the passage is partly about something larger than any one household. Verse 25 is a good verse for a groom to choose for himself. It is a poor verse for a guest to choose for him, and the same goes for verse 22 for a bride.

Is That Line Actually in the Bible?

Several phrases that people search for as "Bible verses about marriage" come from the Book of Common Prayer, the Church of England's service book, or exist only in the King James wording. The 1662 Prayer Book's marriage service is the source of most of the familiar vows. The table shows where each famous phrase really comes from, which matters if you are printing a reference under it. For more lines that are quoted under the wrong name, see our guide to misattributed love quotes.

Matching a Verse to the Moment

Putting a Verse on a Card Without It Sounding Like a Sermon

A verse in a card works best when it is the shortest thing on the card, not the longest. Four habits help:

• Quote less than the whole verse, and say so. "Many waters cannot quench love" is enough. Put the reference underneath, with "a" or "b" for half a verse if you want to be exact.
• Add one sentence of your own that connects it to them. The verse says the general thing; your sentence says the particular one.
• Name the translation if you mix wordings. "ESV" or "KJV" after the reference avoids a guest quietly correcting you.
• Don't give instructions. From a guest, verses that tell a husband or a wife what to do (Ephesians 5:22 to 33, Colossians 3:18 to 19) read as advice nobody asked for.

Three examples, written by our editors to show the shape (not quotations from anyone):

• For a couple's wedding card: "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it" (Song of Solomon 8:7). We have watched yours come through a few floods already. Here's to every year ahead.
• From a husband, twenty-fifth anniversary: "Rejoice in the wife of your youth" (Proverbs 5:18). Twenty-five years on, I still do, and I'd choose you again tomorrow.
• From a mother-in-law, to read at the ceremony or write inside a gift: Ruth said these words to her mother-in-law, and I say them back to you both: "Your people shall be my people" (Ruth 1:16). Welcome to ours.

If you are writing something longer than a card, our guide on how to write a love letter covers structure, and how to start and end a love letter has sign-offs that sit well under a verse.

Questions People Ask About These Verses

What does Scripture say about marriage, in short?

Across these passages, three ideas recur: marriage answers a real need ("it is not good that the man should be alone," Genesis 2:18); it joins two people into one life that others should not break apart (Genesis 2:24, quoted by Jesus in Mark 10:6–9); and it is meant to be enjoyed for the whole of a short life (Proverbs 5:18, Ecclesiastes 9:9), with love described as patient, kind and enduring (1 Corinthians 13).

Is it all right to read Ruth 1:16 at a wedding if it is about a mother-in-law?

Yes. It has been read at weddings for generations, and its meaning (loyalty chosen freely and kept until death) fits a marriage. Knowing the original setting adds to it. If you want, have the officiant say in one sentence who first said it, or ask a parent or in-law to read it.

Which translation should we print in the program?

Use the one your church or officiant reads from, and print its abbreviation after each reference. The ESV and NIV are widely used in modern services; the King James is often chosen for engravings and older-style invitations because of phrases like "whither thou goest." Do not mix translations without labeling them.

When the officiant joins the couple's hands and says "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder," the words are the Book of Common Prayer of 1662, shaped from the King James text of Mark 10:9. Few guests know that, and fewer need to. But the couple choosing the readings can know exactly what each one says, who first said it, and why it still belongs at a wedding.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. King James Version and Book of Common Prayer (1662) quotations are in the public domain.