Laws concerning Marriage and Divorce

24 “Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house;

⁷ They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?”^{(A) 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](B)

⁴ They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.”^{(A) 5} But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. ⁶ But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’^{(B) 7} ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,^{[a](C) 8} and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.^{(D) 9} Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

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

⁸ She^[a] saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce, yet her false sister Judah did not fear, but she also went and prostituted herself.^(A)