<p>13:4 <em>Let marriage be held in respect among all, and let the marital bed be undefiled. For fornicators and adulterers God will judge</em>- I noted on 12:16 that sexual immorality was an issue amongst those wishing to return to Judaism; they felt liberated to misbehave in other areas of moral life if they were technically obedient to ritual. The allusion to Jerusalem as Sodom in :2 (see note there) is continued here; Judaism and the temple cult was actually sexually immoral and would face God's judgment for this. We have here a classic case of where legalism doesn't curb sinful behaviour but actually encourages us. The grip of grace will teach us to deny such lusts, whereas legalism encourages those lusts. There may also be a swipe at the tendency for some Jewish false teachers to deprecate marriage (1 Tim. 4:3); and we noted on Ephesians and 1 Cor. 7 that the Judaists had encouraged the denial of marriage in order to indulge in sexual licence outside of it.</p><p>The adulterers who would be judged were those within the ecclesia and responsible. This is matched by 1 Pet.3:1-5 warning that the sisters were increasingly rebelling against their great prototypes of Eve and Sarah, unwittingly egged on by their unspiritual husbands. So many other New Testament passages imply a surge of marriage and sex related problems in the run up to AD70. The ecclesia of Israel was an adulterous generation; this was their main characteristic (Mt. 16:4). Looking around our sisterhood and brotherhood today there can be no doubt about the reference of all this to our last days. Add to this the parallels with Sodom and the times of Noah in this respect too.&nbsp;</p>