Matthew 5:30-32

Contemporary English Version

³⁰^(A) If your right hand causes you to sin, chop it off and throw it away! It is better to lose one part of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

Divorce

(Matthew 19.9; Mark 10.11,12; Luke 16.18)

³¹^(B) You have been taught that a man who divorces his wife must write out divorce papers for her.^[a] ³²^(C) But I tell you not to divorce your wife unless she has committed some terrible sexual sin.^[b] If you divorce her, you will cause her to be unfaithful, just as any man who marries her is guilty of taking another man's wife.

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Footnotes

5.31 write out divorce papers for her: Jewish men could divorce their wives, but the women could not divorce their husbands. The purpose of writing these papers was to make it harder for a man to divorce his wife. Before this law was made, all a man had to do was to send his wife away and say that she was no longer his wife.
5.32 some terrible sexual sin: This probably refers to the laws about the wrong kinds of marriages that are forbidden in Leviticus 18.6-18 or to some serious sexual sin.