Miscellaneous Laws

⁵ “When a man is newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be charged with any related duty. He shall be free at home one year, to be happy with the wife whom he has married.^(A)

⁷ Has anyone become engaged to a woman but not yet married her? He should go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another marry her.’^(A)

⁴ so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, ⁵ to be self-controlled, chaste, good managers of the household, kind, submissive to their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited.^(A)

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

⁶ But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’^{(A) 7} ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,^{[a](B) 8} and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.^{(C) 9} Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

²⁹ I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none,^(A)

¹⁰ To the married I give this command—not I but the Lord—that the wife should not separate from her husband^{(A) 11} (but if she does separate, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband) and that the husband should not divorce his wife.

¹² To the rest I say—I and not the Lord—that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.^{(B) 13} And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce the husband. ¹⁴ For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy through the brother.^[a] Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.^{(C) 15} But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. It is to peace that God has called us.^[b](D)

⁴ He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’^{(A) 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’?^{(B) 6} So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

⁹ Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun,^[a] because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.^(A)