Matthew 19:1-10

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

Teaching about Divorce

19 Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan; ² and large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

³ And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” ⁴ He answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one’?^{[a] 6} So they are no longer two but one.^[b] What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” ⁷ They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” ⁸ He said to them, “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. ⁹ And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity,^[c] and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries a divorced woman, commits adultery.”^[d][e]

¹⁰ The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.”