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.
Forsaking all
62-0123 §107
Now, some of you people here... You women, you---maybe Pentecostal women---has been guilty of wearing immoral clothes, cutting your hair, doing things... I notice here in California, there's not too many of them ... or, here in Arizona, rather ... not too many of them are wearing make-up. That was fought against too. Well, there's nothing in the Bible to say for you not to wear make-up. We just know it's wrong 'cause it's of the world. But there is a commandment in the Bible that a woman cuts her hair is a dishonor...
Questions and Answers, Part 3
64-0830M §100
QUESTION: When they cut it... Is long---is long hair when they cut it in front? (Now, wait a minute, let me get this here.) Is long hair when they... Well, I---maybe they mean this: "Is it long hair any longer when they cut it in front?" Not any longer, they've cut it off, see. But like the man that had the trousers cut them off three times and still to short. What say? What say? Oh, that's what they're talking about. As I tease my little girl, she said... The "booms" I call them, you know, bangs, or whatever it is...
And knoweth it not
65-0815 §60
Now, look, I want to ask you something. Why can't that woman see it? Why can't she? As far as living in adultery physically, to her husband, she's not guilty; she has nothing to confess. She's as clean as she was the day she was born; no man has touched her. I'm speaking parallel now, to the woman to the church. She's as clean as she was born. Well, that's exactly what the church is. As she was born, but she was born in sin, shaped in iniquity. See what I mean? Now, you tell her that it is wrong for her to cut her...
Jehovah-Jireh, part 1
62-0705 §51
And the Bible said, "It's a dishonorable thing for a woman to cut her hair." She does it, she dishonors her head. She dishonors the angel, the angel of light. The seven church angels, the one bringing the light will stay with the Word. Dishonorable! She ought to have hair on her head. My, such! It used to be wrong for them to do it. In first Pentecost, it was wrong. What happened? You did run well, what happened? And some of our Pentecostal women dress in them dresses, look like a skin over a wiener, out here somew...
Demonology, religious realm, part 2
53-0609A §106
And then, so then, there she was, sitting there. Her poor flesh was flabby. She had that kind of an orchid-looking manicure, or what you call it, on her lips. And a little bitty haircut like a man, and fuzzed all up; what the Bible said, which was a disgrace. And a woman, that a man... The Bible claims, if a woman cuts her hair a man's got a right to put her away in divorcement, because she's not honest with him. We have to get down and preach the Bible here some of these days. Said if she bobs her hair, she dishon...