⁸ Jesus replied, “Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended.

¹³ Here is another thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, weeping and groaning because he pays no attention to your offerings and doesn’t accept them with pleasure. ¹⁴ You cry out, “Why doesn’t the Lord accept my worship?” I’ll tell you why! Because the Lord witnessed the vows you and your wife made when you were young. But you have been unfaithful to her, though she remained your faithful partner, the wife of your marriage vows.

²⁴ This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

¹² They made their hearts as hard as stone, so they could not hear the instructions or the messages that the Lord of Heaven’s Armies had sent them by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. That is why the Lord of Heaven’s Armies was so angry with them.

Judah Rejects the Lord’s Way

⁶ I say this as a concession, not as a command.

⁵ But Jesus responded, “He wrote this commandment only as a concession to your hard hearts.

³¹ So the demons begged, “If you cast us out, send us into that herd of pigs.”

¹⁵ But Jesus said, “It should be done, for we must carry out all that God requires.^[a]” So John agreed to baptize him.