Book of Common Prayer
9 So what shall we say? Are we Jews any better than other people? No, we are not! I have already shown that all men, both Jews and people who are not Jews have done wrong things.
10 The holy writings say, `No one is good. No, not one person.
11 No one is wise. No one wants to know God.
12 They all have turned away from the straight road. Together they have gone the wrong way. No one does good, not even one person!
13 Their mouth is like an open grave. They have used their tongues to fool people. The poison of bad snakes is under their lips.
14 Their mouths are full of cursing and saying bad words to people.
15 Their feet run quickly to kill people.
16 Death and trouble are on the ways they go.
17 They do not know the way of peace.
18 They do not fear God.'
19 We know that everything the law says, it says to the people who have the law. Then no one can say a word for themselves. All the people in the world will be brought to God to be judged.
20 No one will be put right with God because he has tried to obey the law. The law only makes people know what they have done wrong.
19 When Jesus had finished this talk, he left Galilee. He went away to the part of Judea that is on the other side of the Jordan River.
2 Many people followed him. He healed them there.
3 The Pharisees came to Jesus to test him. They asked, `Is it right for a man to send his wife away from him for any reason?'
4 Jesus answered, `Have you not read this? From the time God first made people, he made them a man and a woman.
5 God said, "A man must leave his father and mother and must stay with his wife. The two of them will be like one person."
6 So they are not two people any more, but they are one person. Man must not separate what God has joined together.'
7 They said to Jesus, `Then why did Moses make this law? He said that a man may give his wife a paper to show that he does not want her any more. Then he may send her away.'
8 Jesus said to them, `Moses wrote that law because your hearts are so hard. That is why he let you send your wives away. But in the beginning it was not that way.
9 But I tell you this. No man may send his wife away unless she has committed adultery. If he does, and if he marries another woman, he commits adultery. And if a man marries a woman who has been sent away by her husband, he commits adultery.'
10 The disciples said to him, `If a man and woman are like that, then it is better not to marry.'
11 Jesus said, `Not everyone can agree to that. But God has chosen some not to be married.
12 Some men cannot marry because they were born that way. Some were made that way by men. Others said, "I will not marry, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." `Anyone who can do this, should do it.'
© 1969, 1971, 1996, 1998 by SOON Educational Publications