Marriage in the Bible is described in practical terms: two are better than one, love is patient, don't go to bed angry. These verses are less about the wedding and more about the years after it.
If your marriage involves abuse or you're afraid of your spouse, please reach out to someone who can help you get safe. No verse here is meant to keep anyone in danger.
A verse to start with
For marriage
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
World English Bible (WEB)
Why this fits
Read at nearly every wedding, and best understood as a checklist for the years after. Paul wrote it to a church in conflict, not to a couple, which is why it's so practical: patient, kind, not keeping score, bearing all things. Replace 'love' with your own name and see how it reads.
7 verses for marriage
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
World English Bible (WEB) · Letter (epistle)
Read at nearly every wedding, and best understood as a checklist for the years after. Paul wrote it to a church in conflict, not to a couple, which is why it's so practical: patient, kind, not keeping score, bearing all things. Replace 'love' with your own name and see how it reads.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him up.
World English Bible (WEB) · Wisdom literature
'Two are better than one' because when one falls, the other lifts them up. It's an unsentimental description of what a marriage is for. Verse 12, the threefold cord, extends it: two people with God as the third strand don't break easily.
Colossians 3:14
Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection.
World English Bible (WEB) · Letter (epistle)
'Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection.' The preceding verses list bearing with each other and forgiving. Love is what holds the list together. For a marriage in a hard patch, this verse says what to put on top.
Ephesians 4:2-3
with all lowliness and humility, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
World English Bible (WEB) · Letter (epistle)
'Bearing with one another in love, being eager to keep the unity.' 'Eager' is the word. Staying united isn't automatic; it takes someone wanting it. Paul wrote this about a church, and it applies to any two people who've promised to stay.
Ephesians 4:26
“Be angry, and don’t sin.” Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath,
World English Bible (WEB) · Letter (epistle)
'Don't let the sun go down on your wrath.' Anger is allowed ('be angry, and don't sin'), but it has a deadline. Couples have used this as a rule for centuries because it works: deal with it today. The line sits in a passage about putting away lies and speaking truth to each other, because 'we are members of one another.' In a marriage, unresolved anger doesn't stay in one person. Paul's deadline keeps it from moving in permanently.
1 Peter 4:8
And above all things be earnest in your love among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of sins.
World English Bible (WEB) · Letter (epistle)
'Love covers a multitude of sins.' Not one or two; a multitude. This isn't a license for bad behavior. It's a description of what love does with the ordinary daily failures that pile up in any home. Peter writes to people under real pressure and tells them, above all, to keep loving each other 'earnestly,' a word for a stretched-out effort. Covering sins doesn't mean pretending they didn't happen; it means not keeping score.
Proverbs 17:17
A friend loves at all times; and a brother is born for adversity.
World English Bible (WEB) · Wisdom literature
'A friend loves at all times.' A spouse who is also a friend loves in the seasons that aren't romantic. This proverb is about steadiness, which is most of what a long marriage is made of. The second half says 'a brother is born for adversity,' which is the same idea from another angle. Someone is meant to be there when things go badly. A marriage where each is that person for the other has what this verse describes.