Mark 10:1-12

Teaching About Divorce

1 ¹And he left there and went ²to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again. And again, as was his custom, he taught them.

2 And Pharisees came up and in order ³to test him asked, ⁴"Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"

3 He answered them, "What did Moses command you?"

4 They said, ⁵"Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away."

5 And Jesus said to them, "Because of your ⁶hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.

6 But ⁷from the beginning of creation, 'God made them ⁸male and female.'

7 ⁹'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,^[a]

8 and ¹⁰the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh.

9 ¹¹What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."

10 And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter.

11 And he said to them, ¹²"Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her,

12 and ¹³if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

Cross References

• 1. For ver. 1-12, see Matthew 19:1-9
• 2. Luke 9:51; Luke 17:11; John 10:40; [Matthew 4:25]
• 3. See John 8:6
• 4. Matthew 5:31
• 5. Deuteronomy 24:1-4
• 6. Mark 16:14; [Mark 3:5; Mark 6:52; Hebrews 3:8]
• 7. Mark 13:19; 2 Peter 3:4; [Romans 1:20]
• 8. Cited from Genesis 1:27; Genesis 5:2
• 9. Ephesians 5:31; Cited from Genesis 2:24
• 10. 1 Corinthians 6:16; [Malachi 2:15]
• 11. 1 Corinthians 7:10
• 12. See Matthew 5:32
• 13. 1 Corinthians 7:11, 13

Footnotes

• [a]. Some manuscripts omit and hold fast to his wife