Forefeast of Nativity

See that you don’t refuse him who speaks. For if they didn’t escape when they refused him who warned on the earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven, ²⁶whose voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.”

²²But I exhort you, brothers, endure the word of exhortation, for I have written to you in few words. ²³Know that our brother Timothy has been freed, with whom, if he comes shortly, I will see you.

²⁴Greet all of your leaders and all the saints. The Italians greet you.

²⁵Grace be with you all. Amen.

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.”