Infidelity in marriage is one of the most painful betrayals a person can experience. The Bible speaks clearly about the value of faithfulness within the marriage covenant and the pain that adultery brings, not just to individuals but to families and communities. While the Bible does not single out “cheating husbands” as a unique category apart from broader teachings on adultery, it strongly addresses the responsibilities of husbands and the serious nature of marital unfaithfulness.
Scripture teaches that marriage is a sacred union established by God, meant to reflect His own faithful and committed love for His people. Husbands are called not only to avoid adultery but to love their wives sacrificially—cherishing, respecting, and protecting them as Christ loves the church. Adultery and all forms of betrayal shatter the trust and intimacy God designed for marriage and leads to deep hurt and spiritual consequences.
Here are Bible verses that reveal God’s heart on adultery, faithfulness, and the responsibilities of husbands in marriage. While the focus is on the biblical perspective of unfaithfulness, these passages also hold words of hope, forgiveness, and restoration for those seeking a new beginning.
Bible Verses About Cheating Husbands
1. Exodus 20:14
“You shall not commit adultery.”
2. Hebrews 13:4
“Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”
3. Proverbs 6:32
“He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself.”
4. Proverbs 6:29
“So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; none who touches her will go unpunished.”
5. Matthew 5:27-28
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
6. Malachi 2:14-16
“But you say, ‘Why does he not?’ Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.”
7. Proverbs 5:18-20
“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. Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?”
8. 1 Corinthians 6:18
“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”
9. 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor.”
10. Ephesians 5:25
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
11. Colossians 3:19
“Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.”
12. Matthew 19:6
“So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
13. Proverbs 2:16-17
“So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God.”
14. Job 24:15
“The eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight, saying, ‘No eye will see me’; and he veils his face.”
15. Leviticus 20:10
“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”
16. Romans 7:2-3
“For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive.”
17. Luke 16:18
“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.”
18. Mark 10:11-12
“And he said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’”
19. Proverbs 5:3-5
“For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol.”
20. Proverbs 7:21-23
“With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him. All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver…”
21. James 4:4
“You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?”
22. Jeremiah 5:7-8
“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me and have sworn by those who are no gods. When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of whores. They were well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor’s wife.”
23. Hosea 3:1
“And the Lord said to me, ‘Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.’”
24. Ezekiel 23:37
“For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands.”
25. Matthew 5:31-32
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery.”
26. Jeremiah 3:8
“She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce.”
27. Proverbs 6:24-26
“To preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread, but a married woman hunts down a precious life.”
28. Hosea 4:2
“There is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.”
29. Revelation 21:8
“But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
30. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers… will inherit the kingdom of God.”
31. Galatians 5:19-21
“Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these…”
32. Psalm 51:10
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
33. Ephesians 5:3
“But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.”
34. Matthew 15:19
“For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”
35. 1 John 1:9
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Our Thought on What the Bible Says About Cheating Husbands
The Bible teaches that marital faithfulness is at the heart of God’s design for marriage. Throughout Scripture, God commands husbands to be loyal, loving, and true to their wives, reflecting the unbreakable covenant between Christ and the Church. Cheating, or committing adultery, is spoken against repeatedly and seriously in the Bible—not only as a sin against one’s spouse, but as a sin against God.
From the Ten Commandments to the teachings of Jesus, we learn that even desiring another woman with lust is considered adultery in God’s eyes. Scripture warns that adultery brings pain, brokenness, and destruction to both the individual and the entire family. It also reveals that no act is hidden from God, and betrayal within marriage cannot be taken lightly.
Husbands are instructed to love their wives as Christ loved the church, to be gentle, understanding, and to hold marriage with the highest respect. Yet, the Bible never leaves us without hope or a path to restoration. It promises that those who confess their sins and turn away from unfaithfulness can receive forgiveness and start again, because God is gracious and full of mercy.
Infidelity is a devastating wound, and yet God’s healing is possible through repentance, truth, and a renewed commitment to faithfulness. God desires husbands to protect, honor, and cherish their wives, building marriages that stand as strong testimonies to His faithful, unfailing love. In all things, the Bible calls every husband to integrity, self-control, and above all, a heart that is loyal not only to his wife, but to God himself.