Prostitution

Scripture condemns the offering of sex for money or favours. However, it also stresses the prospect of new life in Christ for prostitutes, and points to some prostitutes as examples of faith.

Prostitution among the heathen

For money

Genesis 38:15–16; Joshua 2:1; Joel 3:3

Religious prostitution

Genesis 38:21–22; Job 36:14

Prostitution in Israel

It was forbidden under God's law

Leviticus 19:29; Deuteronomy 23:17–18

You must not defile your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will be prostituted and filled with depravity.

No daughter or son of Israel is to be a shrine prostitute. You must not bring the wages of a prostitute, whether female or male, into the house of the LORD your God to fulfill any vow, because both are detestable to the LORD your God.

Priests were forbidden to marry prostitutes

See also Leviticus 21:7, Leviticus 21:14

The penalties for prostitution

Genesis 38:24; Leviticus 21:9

Efforts to remove the shrine-prostitutes

1 Kings 15:11–12, 1 Kings 22:45–46

The lure of prostitution

Proverbs 7:10 See also 1 Corinthians 6:9

Then a woman came out to meet him, with the attire of a harlot and cunning of heart.

The prevalaence of prostitution

1 Kings 14:24 See also 1 Kings 3:16; Jeremiah 5:7; Hosea 4:13–14, Hosea 6:10; Micah 1:7

There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land. They imitated all the abominations of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.

Warnings against prostitution

It has dire consequences

Proverbs 6:25–27 See also Judges 16:1–2; Proverbs 23:26–27, Proverbs 29:3; Luke 15:30

Do not lust in your heart for her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes. For the levy of the prostitute is poverty, and the adulteress preys upon your very life. Can a man embrace fire and his clothes not be burned?

Christians must avoid it

1 Corinthians 6:15–16

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Or don’t you know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”

Prostitutes can be redeemed

Matthew 21:31–32 See also Luke 7:37–50; 1 Corinthians 6:9–11; Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25; Joshua 6:22–25

Which of the two did the will of his father?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

Prostitution as a metaphor

For worldly corruption

Revelation 17:1–5 See also Isaiah 23:15–17; Nahum 3:4

Then one of the seven angels with the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters. The kings of the earth were immoral with her, and those who dwell on the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her immorality.” And the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, where I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls. She held in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead a mysterious name was written: BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

For apostasy

Deuteronomy 31:16 See also Exodus 34:15–16; Leviticus 20:5; Judges 2:17, Judges 8:27, Judges 8:33; 1 Chronicles 5:25; Psalm 106:39; Isaiah 1:21; Ezekiel 16:16–17, Ezekiel 16:26, Ezekiel 16:28, Ezekiel 16:33–34, Ezekiel 16:41, Ezekiel 23:1–35; Hosea 4:10–12, Hosea 5:4

And the LORD said to Moses, “You will soon rest with your fathers, and these people will rise up and prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake Me and break the covenant I have made with them.