Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
Parallel translations
- WEB Wives, be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
- KJV Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
- NKJV Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
- NASB Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
- NLT Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Wives are to submit to their husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. This begins Paul's instructions for Christian households.
Overview
Paul opens his 'household code' addressing wives to 'be in subjection to your husbands,' qualified by 'as is fitting in the Lord.' This submission is voluntary, ordered, and shaped by Christ's lordship, not a license for harshness, since husbands are commanded to love sacrificially in the verses that follow. Faithful Christians discuss how this applies today, but agree it is rooted in the Lord and paired with the husband's call to selfless love.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Eph 5:22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
- Titus 2:4–5In this way they can train the young women to love their husbands and children,
- 1 Cor 11:3But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
- 1 Pet 3:1–6Wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your husbands, so that even if they refuse to believe the word, they will be won over without words by the behavior of their wives
- Gen 3:16To the woman He said: “I will sharply increase your pain in childbirth; in pain you will bring forth children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
- 1 Tim 2:12I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; she is to remain quiet.
- Esth 1:20The edict the king issues will be heard throughout his vast kingdom—and so all women, from the least to the greatest, will honor their husbands.”
- 1 Cor 14:34Women are to be silent in the churches. They are not permitted to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.
- Acts 5:29But Peter and the other apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men.
- Eph 5:3But among you, as is proper among the saints, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed.
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The image of the invisible God, firstborn over creation, in whom all things hold together and all the fullness of God dwells bodily — supreme over every power.
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Original language
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