The story, with variations, is familiar. It happens every week in every country: men and women being caught in the act of adultery.
But I repeat: Human beings are incapable of formulating moral laws. Because of this fact we must needs look to God - the one who created us in the first place - for guidance on what constitutes good moral behaviour. Here is what the Almighty says, yea commands, concerning this matter of adultery.
Exodus 20: | 14: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” This is one of the ten commandments |
Leviticus 20: | 10: “And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” |
Leviticus 18: | 20: “Moreover thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour's wife, to defile thyself with her.” |
Proverbs 6: | 32: “But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.” |
2 Samuel 11: | 27: “... the thing that David had done displeased the LORD. God sent the prophet Nathan to David with this message:...” |
2 Samuel 12: | 9: “Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. 10: Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. 11: Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. 12: For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.” |
King David repented deeply. He confessed his sin and Yahweh forgave him: but the inevitable results of David’s sin could not be reversed. Later his son Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar and another son Absalom committed adultery with David's concubines on the same palace roof from which David had seen Bath-sheba bathing. David was pardoned for his sins. He will be in the kingdom of God. But he was unable to reverse God's punishment for his adultery and murder. These are facts of history.
Jeremiah 23: | 10: “For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourneth; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up, and their course is evil, and their force is not right.” |
Jeremiah 23: | 14: I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah. |
Jeremiah 29: | 23: “Because they have committed villany in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbours' wives, and have spoken lying words in my name, which I have not commanded them; even I know, and am a witness, saith the LORD.” |
Jeremiah 13: | 27: “I have seen thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy whoredom, and thine abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?” |
Malachi 3: | 5: “And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.” |
Revelation 2: | 20: “Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. 21: And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. 22: Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. 23: And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.” |
The Apostle Paul writes this warning:
1 Corinthians 6: | 9: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind. (Homosexuality) 10: Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” |