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Matthew 5:26-28
New Catholic Bible
Matthew 5:26-28
New Catholic Bible
26 Believe the truth of what I tell you: you will not be given your freedom until you have paid your debt down to the last penny.[a]
27 Adultery.[b]“You have heard that it was said of old: ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that anyone who looks with lust at a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Matthew 5:26 Penny: the smallest Roman copper coin.
- Matthew 5:27 At this period, the laws on divorce were tolerant for husbands, intransigent for wives. Jesus rejects this inequality and confronts husbands with their responsibilities by radically condemning divorce. Matthew’s text contains the clause, “except if the marriage was unlawful,” which is lacking in the parallel passages of Luke and Mark, but occurs again in Mt 19:9. The Greek word porneia, “unchastity,” is generic and so has given rise to much discussion. The widely accepted opinion among scholars today is that it was a technical term used by the Jewish Christian community to signify a degree of relationship that constituted an impediment to marriage according to the Law (Lev 18:6-18; Acts 15:29).
