¹⁸ The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”^(A)

¹⁹ Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals^(B) and all the birds in the sky.^(C) He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called^(D) each living creature,^(E) that was its name.

²¹ So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep;^(A) and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs^[a] and then closed up the place with flesh. ²² Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib^[b](B) he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

²³ The man said,

²⁴ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united^(F) to his wife, and they become one flesh.^(G)

³ Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife^(A) for any and every reason?”

⁴ “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’^{[a](B) 5} and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’^[b]?^{(C) 6} So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”