Matthew 19:3-8

International Standard Version

³ Some Pharisees came to him in order to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man^[a] to divorce his wife for any reason?”

⁴ He answered them, “Haven’t you read that the one who made^[b] them at the beginning ‘made them male and female’^{[c] 5} and said, ‘That is why a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?^{[d] 6} So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, man must never separate.”

⁷ They asked him, “Why, then, did Moses order us ‘to give a certificate of divorce and divorce her’?”^[e]

⁸ He told them, “It was because of your hardness of heart that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning it was not this way.