Matthew 19:4-9

Teaching About Divorce

4 He answered, t "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, u 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and v the two shall become one flesh'? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. w What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." 7 They said to him, x "Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?" 8 He said to them, "Because of your y hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 z And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery." 1

  1. Cross References
    Genesis 1:27
    So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
    Genesis 2:18
    Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.
    Genesis 2:21 - 23
    So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
    Genesis 5:2
    Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created.
    Matthew 21:16
    And they said to him, "Do you hear what these are saying?" And Jesus said to them, "Yes; have you never read, "'Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise'?
  2. Cross References
    Ephesians 5:31
    "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."
    Genesis 2:24
    Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
  3. Cross References
    1 Corinthians 6:16
    Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, "The two will become one flesh.
    Malachi 2:15
    Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.
  4. Cross References
    Genesis 2:24
    Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
  5. Cross References
    1 Corinthians 7:10
    To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband
  6. Cross References
    Deuteronomy 24:1 - 4
    When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house.
  7. Cross References
    Mark 16:14
    Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.
    Mark 3:5
    And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
    Mark 6:52
    For they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.
    Hebrews 3:8
    Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness.
  8. Cross References
    Matthew 5:32
    But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.