²³ You shall be careful to do what has passed your lips, for you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth.

³⁶ I tell you, ^(A)on the day of judgment ^(B)people will give account for ^(C)every careless word they speak,

³ And Pharisees came up to him and ^(A)tested him by asking, ^(B)“Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” ⁴ He answered, ^(C)“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, ^(D)‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and ^(E)the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two but one flesh. ^(F)What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” ⁷ They said to him, ^(G)“Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” ⁸ He said to them, “Because of your ^(H)hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. ^9 (I)And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”^[a]

²⁶ Then God said, ^(A)“Let us make man^[a] in our image, ^(B)after our likeness. And ^(C)let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

¹⁵ But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you^{[a] (A)}to peace. ¹⁶ For how do you know, wife, ^(B)whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

Live as You Are Called

¹⁷ Only let each person lead the life^{[b] (C)}that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. ^(D)This is my rule in ^(E)all the churches.

²⁴ So, brothers,^{[a] (A)}in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.