² Some Pharisees came to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

³ “What did Moses command you?” he responded.

⁴ They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to divorce her.”^[a]

⁵ But Jesus told them, “It was because of your hardness of heart that he wrote this command for you. ⁶ But from the beginning of creation, ‘God^[b] made them male and female.’^{[c] 7} That’s why ‘a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, ⁸ and the two will become one flesh.’^[d] So they’re no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹ 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.”