What does the Bible say about divorce and remarriage?
Bible Topic · WEB
The Bible teaches that marriage is a lifelong covenant, so divorce is grievous and remarriage after an unlawful divorce is ordinarily adultery, though Scripture recognizes limited circumstances of marital rupture. Jesus condemns casual divorce and permits divorce for sexual immorality in Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9. Paul urges separated believers to seek reconciliation or remain unmarried in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, while allowing a believer abandoned by an unbelieving spouse to live in peace in 1 Corinthians 7:15. Malachi 2:16 underscores God’s hatred of faithless divorce. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 regulates divorce in fallen Israel rather than approving it. Death ends the marriage bond, freeing the surviving spouse to remarry in the Lord, as Romans 7:2-3 and 1 Corinthians 7:39 teach.
Top passages, ranked by readers
Rankings: OpenBible.info Topical Bible (CC BY) · Scripture: World English Bible
- Matthew 5:32 7 votes
but I tell you that whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries her when she is put away commits adultery.
- Luke 16:18 6 votes
“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. He who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.
- Matthew 19:9 6 votes
I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery.”
- Malachi 2:16 5 votes
One who hates and divorces”, says Yahweh, the God of Israel, “covers his garment with violence!” says Yahweh of Armies. “Therefore pay attention to your spirit, that you don’t be unfaithful.
- Deuteronomy 24:1-4 4 votes
When a man takes a wife and marries her, then it shall be, if she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a certificate of divorce, put it in her hand, and send her out of his house. When she has departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. If the latter husband hates her, and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife; her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife after she is defiled; for that would be an abomination to Yahweh. You shall not cause the land to sin, which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance.
- 1 Corinthians 7:39 4 votes
A wife is bound by law for as long as her husband lives; but if the husband is dead, she is free to be married to whomever she desires, only in the Lord.
- 1 Corinthians 7:15 4 votes
Yet if the unbeliever departs, let there be separation. The brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us in peace.
- 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 3 votes
But to the married I command—not I, but the Lord—that the wife not leave her husband (but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband not leave his wife.
- Romans 7:2 3 votes
For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband.
- Romans 7:1-3 3 votes
Or don’t you know, brothers (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives? For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband. So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man.
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