Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. Let not man therefore put asunder that, which God hath [a]coupled together.

[b]They said to him, Why did then (A) Moses command to give a bill of divorcement, and to put her away?

He said unto them, Moses, [c]because of the hardness of your heart, [d]suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

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Footnotes

  1. Matthew 19:6 Hath made them yoke fellows, as the marriage itself is by a borrowed kind of speech called a yoke.
  2. Matthew 19:7 Because political Laws are constrained to bear with some things, it followeth not by and by that God alloweth them.
  3. Matthew 19:8 Being occasioned by reason of the hardness of your hearts.
  4. Matthew 19:8 By a political law, not by the moral law: for this law is a perpetual law of God’s justice, the other boweth and bendeth as the carpenter’s Bevel.

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?”(A)

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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