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.
The Rejected King
60-0610 §24
Now these people seen how the Philistines were doing, how the Amalekites and the different ones were acting. And they came to Samuel and said, "We want to be like them." And it's about the same today. You just let the world start a certain fashion or some fad, and you find all the people---even to many of the Christians---want to do that same thing. They want to act like it. You let the boys start cutting their hair a certain way, and all the boys want to do it. And they got to a place now they let their hair grow...
Questions and Answers on Hebrews, part 3
57-1006 §85
Now listen to this: For the man is not of the woman; but the woman is of the man. For this cause ought a woman to have power on her head because of the angels, Any of you read it? I Corinthians, the 11th chapter, and the 10th verse. If you notice, "power of the angels," I Corinthians, because the angels is the man, the messenger. Look, it's a little "a" again. Where Angels are concerned, of heavenly Angels, it's a big "A," capital "A." Where it's a little "a," it's men---angels. Nevertheless neither is the man ......
And knoweth it not
65-0815 §68
That's why that woman will wear them shorts. She's counted a prostitute the same as the woman in the act, see. She doesn't know that that spirit... How does she know her ultimate? What is an ultimate? It's the last word. The ultimate is the Amen; it's the end of all strife---your ultimate. And if your church ... a Pentecostal church that tells you that long hair stuff is just fanaticism---"You've got a spare tire on the back of your head," and so forth and them kind of things---the man is possessed of the devil; fo...
The Church and its condition
56-0805 §56
And now you say, "Brother Branham, I think if I got short hair, it makes me cool and everything like..." That's right, but if you got long hair, you'd be cooler. It'll take it all off your neck, and wrap it up and make it right. Why, you know what the Bible said? That, a man has a right to put away his wife and get a divorce from her if she cuts her hair. If she cuts her hair, it shows she's living untrue to him. The Bible said so, I Corinthians 12; find out if it's not right. She that... A woman that cuts her hair...
Questions and Answers, Part 4
64-0830E §72
If a woman has got real thin hair, and she wants to wear one of those "rats" or ever what you call it, I think that's... My wife wears it. It's a... She says her hair's thin, and she's got some kind of a thing about that big around, looks like a great big, oversized biscuit. And she wraps her hair around that and pins the pins in it. And now, as far as I'm concerned, that don't bother anything as long as your hair is long. A minister said his wife was condemned, because she had a tint in her hair. And I found out f...