Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.
Parallel translations
- WEB Husbands, love your wives, and don’t be bitter against them.
- KJV Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
- NKJV Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them.
- NASB Husbands, love your wives and do not become bitter against them.
- NLT Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.
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
Husbands are to love their wives actively and refuse to let resentment or harshness take root. It matters because Christian marriage is meant to display self-giving, Christlike love.
Overview
In his household instructions, Paul addresses husbands directly, balancing the wife's submission (v. 18) with a sacrificial command to love. The warning against bitterness guards against the daily hardness and coldness that can replace love over time. Ephesians 5 makes explicit what is implied here: this love is patterned on Christ's love for the church, who gave himself for her.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- 1 Pet 3:7Husbands, in the same way, treat your wives with consideration as a delicate vessel, and with honor as fellow heirs of the gracious gift of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.
- Gen 2:23–24And the man said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man she was taken.”
- Col 3:21Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they will not become discouraged.
- Eph 5:25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her
- Eph 5:28–29In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
- Eph 4:31Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, outcry and slander, along with every form of malice.
- Eph 5:33Nevertheless, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
- Prov 5:18–19May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:
- Eccl 9:9Enjoy life with your beloved wife all the days of the fleeting life that God has given you under the sun—all your fleeting days. For this is your portion in life and in your labor under the sun.
- Mal 2:14–16Yet you ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have broken faith, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
- Jas 3:14But if you harbor bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast in it or deny the truth.
- Luke 14:26“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple.
- Gen 24:67And Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah and took Rebekah as his wife. And Isaac loved her and was comforted after his mother’s death.
- Rom 3:14“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
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.
How Colossians 3:19 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.