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.
Ask a Follow-up Question
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.
The mark of the beast
56-0715 §30
Like Eve was in the garden of Eden. Adam turned his back on God and went with Eve. And America and the rest of the world has turned their back on God and went with the women. That's scorching. But that's true. Look around. Why, you men! What's the matter with you? Any man that'll let his wife wear clothes like that and smoke cigarettes, that shows what you're made out of. Men, do you know you're the sons of God? You don't know God is; and you don't fear God, you fear your wife. That's right. Broken cisterns. Hollyw...
Hear ye Him
58-0324 §23
And now to you holiness people: Pentecostal, Free Methodist, Nazarenes, Pilgrim Holiness. I remember the time when it was wrong for you women to cut your hair. What happened? Do you know the Bible gives a man a right to get a divorce from his wife when she cuts her hair? The Bible said that a woman that cuts her hair dishonors her husband. That's the truth. And you get out here with these little old, dirty, nasty, filthy clothes on, called shorts, to mow the grass in the back yard, and call yourself a Christian? Ho...
Why little Bethlehem?
63-1214 §97
I said the other day, about Jacqueline Kennedy, how many times I've rebuked you women for cutting your hair, wearing makeup, you Pentecostal women cutting your hair, which God said it's... You make yourself a street harlot when you do it. And, according to God, your husband has no right to live with you any longer. A woman that cuts her hair, dishonors her head, which is her husband. That's exactly. What did I say about it? And you call me out on it, I get the letters, "You old crank." All right, they called Elijah...
Questions and Answers, Part 3
64-0830M §148
QUESTION: Is it wrong to trim the ends of woman's hair? I believe we just went through that a few minutes ago, see, for the little ... I guess they call them little things that hang down like that...
But it wasn't so from the beginning
61-0411 §61
And so, I started over, and up come another woman, looked the same way, and here come another woman looked the same. I backed off. She probably would've slapped me if I had asked her. But you know, she had her eyes painted green out here, blue back here---awfullest looking sight I ever seen in my life. Now, women, if you're going to wear that stuff, which you oughtn't to do it... You oughtn't to do it. But why don't you try to look like a human anyhow, not like some kind of a something that fell out of ... a corpse...