Jesus Teaches about Divorce^(A)

10 Then Jesus left that place, went to the province of Judea, and crossed the Jordan River. Crowds came flocking to him again, and he taught them, as he always did.

² Some Pharisees came to him and tried to trap him. “Tell us,” they asked, “does our Law allow a man to divorce his wife?”

³ Jesus answered with a question, “What law did Moses give you?”

^4 (B)Their answer was, “Moses gave permission for a man to write a divorce notice and send his wife away.”

⁵ Jesus said to them, “Moses wrote this law for you because you are so hard to teach. ^6 (C)But in the beginning, at the time of creation, ‘God made them male and female,’ as the scripture says. ^7 (D)‘And for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and unite with his wife,^{[a] 8} and the two will become one.’ So they are no longer two, but one. ⁹ No human being must separate, then, what God has joined together.”

¹⁰ When they went back into the house, the disciples asked Jesus about this matter. ^11 (E)He said to them, “A man who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against his wife. ¹² In the same way, a woman who divorces her husband and marries another man commits adultery.”