⁷ Husbands, in the same way, show consideration for your wives in your life together, paying honor to the woman—though the weaker vessel,^[a] they are joint heirs of the gracious gift of life—so that nothing may hinder your prayers.^(A)

¹⁹ Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.

²³ Then the man said,

²⁴ Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.^(B)

³ Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?”^{(A) 4} He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’^{(B) 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 flesh’?^{(C) 6} So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” ⁷ They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?”^{(D) 8} He said to them, “It was because you were so hard-hearted that 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 sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”^[a](E)

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, ²⁷ so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind, so that she may be holy and without blemish.^{(A) 28} In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.