And Pharisees came up and in order (A)to test him asked, (B)“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, (C)“Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” And Jesus said to them, “Because of your (D)hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But (E)from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them (F)male and female.’ (G)‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,[a] and (H)the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. (I)What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

10 And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 And he said to them, (J)“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, 12 and (K)if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

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Footnotes

  1. Mark 10:7 Some manuscripts omit and hold fast to his wife

Some Pharisees came to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

“What did Moses command you?” he responded.

They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to divorce her.”[a]

But Jesus told them, “It was because of your hardness of heart that he wrote this command for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God[b] made them male and female.’[c] That’s why ‘a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’[d] So they’re no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, man must never separate.”

10 Back in the house, the disciples asked him about this again. 11 So he told them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12 And if a woman[e] divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

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Footnotes

  1. Mark 10:4 Cf. Deut 24:1, 3
  2. Mark 10:6 Other mss. read He
  3. Mark 10:6 Cf. Gen 1:27; 5:2
  4. Mark 10:8 Cf. Gen 2:24
  5. Mark 10:12 Lit. she