He answered, (A)“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, (B)‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and (C)the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. (D)What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” They said to him, (E)“Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your (F)hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

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“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a](A) 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]?(B) So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”(C)

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.

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Footnotes

  1. Matthew 19:4 Gen. 1:27
  2. Matthew 19:5 Gen. 2:24