Mark 10:1-12
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 10
Marriage and Divorce.[a] 1 After departing from there, Jesus came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.[b] Again the crowds gathered around him, and, as was his custom, he began to teach them.
2 Some Pharisees came forward and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3 He replied, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and dismiss her.” 5 But Jesus said to them, “It was because of the hardness of your hearts that he wrote this commandment for you. 6 But from the very beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, 8 and the two become one flesh.’ And so they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
10 When they were again in the house, the disciples once more questioned Jesus about this. 11 He said to them, “If a man divorces his wife and marries another, he commits adultery against her. 12 In the same way, if a wife divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Mark 10:1 Divorce was practiced by permission of the Mosaic Law (Deut 24:1). But a permission supposes a weakness; it does not represent the law that gives life. From the beginning, God willed the unity of the couple in marriage (see Gen 1:27 and 2:24). Jesus recalls this requirement and shows, too, that the Scriptures ought to be interpreted in light of the fundamental perspectives of God’s plan and not on the basis of the changeable desires and needs of human beings.
- Mark 10:1 Region of Judea beyond the Jordan: Judea was the southern part of Palestine, which had formerly been the southern kingdom. Jesus went south from Capernaum over the mountains of Samaria into Judea and then east across the Jordan to Perea, the territory of Herod Antipas.
