OLD TESTAMENT TEXTS ON
DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE
Exodus 21
10 If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights.
11 If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.
Deut 24
1 If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house,
2 and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man,
3 and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies,
4 then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the LORD. Do not bring sin upon the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.
Deut 21
10 When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives,
11 if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife.
12 Bring her into your home and make her shave her head, trim her nails
13 and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.
14 If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonoured her.
Deut 22
13 If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her
14 and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, "I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,"
15 then the girl's father and mother shall bring proof that she was a virgin to the town elders at the gate.
16 The girl's father will say to the elders, "I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her.
17 Now he has slandered her and said, `I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.' But here is the proof of my daughter's virginity." Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town,
18 and the elders shall take the man and punish him.
They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the girl's father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.
28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered,
29 he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.
Lev 21
5 "`Priests must not shave their heads or shave off the edges of their beards or cut their bodies.
6 They must be holy to their God and must not profane the name of their God. Because they present the offerings made to the LORD by fire, the food of their God, they are to be holy.
7 "`They must not marry women defiled by prostitution or divorced from their husbands, because priests are holy to their God.
8 Regard them as holy, because they offer up the food of your God. Consider them holy, because I the LORD am holy--I who make you holy
Mal 2.10-16
10 Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?
11 Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the LORD loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god.
12 As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the LORD cut him off from the tents of Jacob-- even though he brings offerings to the LORD Almighty.
13 Another thing you do: You flood the LORD's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands.
14 You ask, "Why?" It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.
15 Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.
16 "I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel, "and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment," says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.
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