Teaching about Divorce

19 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.^(A)

⁴⁰ He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing earlier, and he remained there.

Teaching about Divorce

19 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.^{(A) 2} Large crowds followed him, and he cured them there.^(B)

³ Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?”^{(C) 4} He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’^{(D) 5} and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?^{(E) 6} So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” ⁷ They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?”^{(F) 8} He said to them, “It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. ⁹ And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”^[a](G)

Teaching about Divorce

10 He left that place and went to the region of Judea and^[a] beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered around him, and, as was his custom, he again taught them.^(A)

² Some,^[b] testing him, asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” ³ He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” ⁴ They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.”^{(B) 5} But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. ⁶ But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’^{(C) 7} ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,^{[c](D) 8} and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.^{(E) 9} Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

¹⁰ Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. ¹¹ He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her,^{(F) 12} and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

²⁸ Now when Jesus had finished saying these words, the crowds were astounded at his teaching,^(A)