10 Then he left Capernaum^[a] and went southward to the Judean borders and into the area east of the Jordan River. And as always there were the crowds; and as usual he taught them.

² Some Pharisees came and asked him, “Do you permit divorce?” Of course they were trying to trap him.

³ “What did Moses say about divorce?” Jesus asked them.

⁴ “He said it was all right,” they replied. “He said that all a man has to do is write his wife a letter of dismissal.”

⁵ “And why did he say that?” Jesus asked. “I’ll tell you why—it was a concession to your hardhearted wickedness. ^6-7 But it certainly isn’t God’s way. For from the very first he made man and woman to be joined together permanently in marriage; therefore a man is to leave his father and mother, ⁸ and he and his wife are united so that they are no longer two, but one. ⁹ And no man may separate what God has joined together.”

¹⁰ Later, when he was alone with his disciples in the house, they brought up the subject again.

¹¹ He told them, “When a man divorces his wife to marry someone else, he commits adultery against her. ¹² And if a wife divorces her husband and remarries, she, too, commits adultery.”