¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding^(A) to him.” ¹⁹ The Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it.^(B) And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man^[a] no helper was found corresponding to him. ²¹ So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man,^(C) and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. ²² Then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man.^{(D) 23} And the man said:

²⁴ This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh.^{(F) 25} Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.

The Question of Divorce

19 When Jesus had finished saying these things,^(A) he departed from Galilee and went to the region of Judea across the Jordan.^{(B) 2} Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.^{(C) 3} Some Pharisees approached him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds?” ^(D)

⁴ “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that he who created^[a] them in the beginning made them male and female,^{[b](E) 5} and he also said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?^{[c](F) 6} So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

⁷ “Why then,” they asked him, “did Moses command us to give divorce papers^(G) and to send her away?”

⁸ He told them, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts, but it was not like that from the beginning. ⁹ I tell you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery.”^[d](H)

⁴ Marriage is to be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, because God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.^(A)