Martyr Sebastian and Companions at Rome; Holy Hieromartyr Modestus I, Archbishop of Jerusalem (634); St Michael Syngellos the Confessor

But we know that the law is good if a person uses it lawfully, ⁹as knowing this, that law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, ¹⁰for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave-traders, for liars, for perjurers, and for any other thing contrary to the sound doctrine, ¹¹according to the Good News of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

¹²I thank him who enabled me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he counted me faithful, appointing me to service, ¹³although I used to be a blasphemer, a persecutor, and insolent. However, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. ¹⁴The grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

Pharisees came to him testing him, and asked him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

³He answered, “What did Moses command you?”

⁴They said, “Moses allowed a certificate of divorce to be written, and to divorce her.”

⁵But Jesus said to them, “For your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment. ⁶But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. ⁷For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will join to his wife, ⁸and the two will become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

¹⁰In the house, his disciples asked him again about the same matter. ¹¹He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. ¹²If a woman herself divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”