If a Woman Willfully Cuts or Shaves Off Her Hair but Wears a Scarf or Hat to Pray, Is She Covered?
1) Direct answer
No. If a woman willfully cuts or shaves her hair and then puts on a scarf or hat to pray, she is still uncovered before God. The only covering Scripture names is her hair. She must repent, stop cutting, and let it grow. A scarf may be worn for modesty, but it does not fulfill 1 Corinthians 11.
2) Scriptural explanation
- “Every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head… for if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn… but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered” (1 Corinthians 11:5–6). Uncovered is tied to being shorn/shaven.
- “Her hair is given her for a covering” (1 Corinthians 11:15). The Bible names the covering: hair.
- God receives the repentant: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive” (1 John 1:9).
3) Simple clarifying logic
- Willful cutting/shaving = shorn/shaven = uncovered, regardless of any hat.
- The remedy Paul gives is not a hat, but to be “covered”—and he defines that covering as hair. So obedience is to cease cutting and let the hair grow back.
- While it grows, she can pray and walk modestly, but she must not claim a scarf as the Scriptural covering. God forgives the repentant heart immediately; the visible sign returns as the hair grows.
4) Reinforcing statement
Now notice, God is not measuring hats—He honors obedience. Let the hair grow, don’t cut it again, and the God-given covering will return.
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What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Oneness
62-0211 §73
A woman wrote me a question the other day; she said, "Brother Branham..." Or, no, it was a man, a minister. He may be standing here this morning. He's just from Ohio. And he said, "We want to say the same thing you do, but we found something on your tapes that's not right." So Billy brought the letter to me. Said, "Something on your tapes," says, "is very contradictory, Brother Branham, to the Word of God. And we want to--we want to say the same thing." Said, "One question I want to say to you; that's I Corinthians...
The Token
64-0208 §87
There's a lady sitting right here. She's got tumors. She isn't from here. She's from Sacramento. Her name is Mrs. Bradley. Stand up on your feet if that's right, lady, and we're strangers. Raise your hand, if that's right. Is that right? I truly believe they're gone. Now, that's just a woman sitting there. Here's a lady sitting way back here. She's got on a hat, kind of a brown-looking hat. It's got feathers. She's putting her glasses on. She's sitting there praying. She was praying for something to happen. What ma...
Questions and Answers, Part 3
64-0830M §101
And now, but cutting the hair, I'll tell you this. I can't ... I ain't got no Scripture to say that you can cut so much of it and can't do the other. I haven't got no Scripture for that, I couldn't tell you that, sister, or brother, ever who it is. I say one thing. I wished... Now, I know my kids has done that too, Rebekah and Sarah, I seen when they cut their hair off here in front, and plait it back here in the back, and make these things across the front, like this. I don't ... now, not holding them, see. No, si...
And knoweth it not
65-0815 §28
Now, this Methodist woman would not do a thing like that. No, indeedy. She's a decent woman. And another thing, she would not touch a bit of whisky, because the Methodist church ... 90% of their program is prohibition against whisky, against whisky. So, they got a prohibition program, and them people of that Methodist church don't live no higher than that church teaches. But this same woman, this Methodist woman goes out in the evening with her husband, wearing shorts on Sunday after Sunday school, she cuts her hai...
The Evening Messenger
63-0116 §75
Heard a minister the other day, said, "When they invented this blue stuff for the eyes, and red lips, they made a prettier world." A minister of the Gospel, in the pulpit, would make a remark like that, he needs a trip to Calvary. That's exactly right, when the Bible condemns it! And a Pentecostal group told a sister that come to the place crying, because she had her hair done up on the back of her head, with long hair, said, "Your spare tire might get deflated." Said, "You must cut that hair off, because that the...