Jesus’ Teaching about Divorce

10 Getting up, He left there (Capernaum) and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan; and crowds gathered around Him again and accompanied Him, and as was His custom, He once more began to teach them.

² Pharisees came to Jesus to test Him [intending to trick Him into saying something wrong], and asked Him, “Is it lawful [according to Scripture] for a man to divorce his wife and send her away?” ³ He replied to them, “What did Moses command you?” ⁴ They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.”^{(A) 5} But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of hearts [your callousness and insensitivity toward your wives and the ^[a]provision of God] he wrote you this precept. 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 his mother [to establish a home with his wife],^{(C) 8} and the two shall become one flesh; so that they are no longer two, but [are united as] one flesh.^{(D) 9} Therefore, what God has united and joined together, man must not separate [by divorce].”

¹⁰ In the house the disciples began questioning Him again about this. ¹¹ And He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; ¹² and if a woman divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”