Divorce

Then some Pharisees came to test Jesus. They were hoping they could take something that Jesus said and use it against Him. It is possible that these Pharisees had not heard of the teaching Jesus gave on the mountainside by the Sea of Galilee. But it is also possible that the Pharisees were aware of Jesus’ teaching and wanted to test His consistency. They asked Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”

“What did Moses command you?” Jesus asked.

They answered, “Moses permitted a man to write his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away.”

But Jesus replied, “Moses wrote this commandment for you because of your hardness of heart, but it was not always this way. From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ And ‘For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So, they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

When Jesus and His disciples had gone back into the house where they were staying, His disciples asked Jesus about this matter. So, Jesus told them, “Whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

His disciples concluded, “If this is the case between a man and his wife, then it is better not to marry.”

Jesus answered, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way; others were made that way by people; still others live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

See Matthew 19:3-12; Mark 10:2-12; Deuteronomy 24:1; Genesis 1:27; Genesis 5:2; Genesis 2:24

Notes: Matthew 19:9: For the Gospel of Matthew, two of the sources—the Byzantine text-type (BYZ) and the Society of Biblical Literature, Greek New Testament (SBL) record the follow-on statement: “And he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”