Laws Concerning Divorce

24 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and ^(A)he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,

⁷ They said to him, ^(A)“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 ^(B)hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. ^9 (C)And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”^[a]

⁴ They said, ^(A)“Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” ⁵ And Jesus said to them, “Because of your ^(B)hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. ⁶ But ^(C)from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them ^(D)male and female.’ ^7 (E)‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,^{[a] 8} and ^(F)the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. ^9 (G)What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

¹⁰ And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. ¹¹ And he said to them, ^(H)“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, ¹² and ^(I)if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

⁸ She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, ^(A)I had sent her away with ^(B)a decree of divorce. ^(C)Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went ^(D)and played the whore.

Israel's Sin and the Servant's Obedience