²⁴ And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.

⁴ He answered, ^(A)“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, ^(B)‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and ^(C)the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two but one flesh. ^(D)What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

²⁸ In the same way ^(A)husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, ³⁰ because ^(B)we are members of his body. ^31 (C)“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and ^(D)the two shall become one flesh.” ³² This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.