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Gospel Reading - Teaching about Divorce

¹Then he left Capernaum^a and went southward to the Judean borders and into the area east of the Jordan River. And as always there were the crowds; and as usual he taught them.

²Some Pharisees came and asked him, “Do you permit divorce?” Of course they were trying to trap him.

³“What did Moses say about divorce?” Jesus asked them.

⁴“He said it was all right,” they replied. “He said that all a man has to do is write his wife a letter of dismissal.”

⁵“And why did he say that?” Jesus asked. “I’ll tell you why — it was a concession to your hardhearted wickedness. ^6-7But it certainly isn’t God’s way. For from the very first he made man and woman to be joined together permanently in marriage; therefore a man is to leave his father and mother, ⁸and he and his wife are united so that they are no longer two, but one. ⁹And no man may separate what God has joined together.”

¹⁰Later, when he was alone with his disciples in the house, they brought up the subject again.

¹¹He told them, “When a man divorces his wife to marry someone else, he commits adultery against her. ¹²And if a wife divorces her husband and remarries, she, too, commits adultery.”

1. Literally, “And rising up, he went from there.” Mentioned here so quietly, this was his final farewell to Galilee. He never returned until after his death and resurrection.