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Matthew 19:1-2
New Catholic Bible
Matthew 19:1-2
New Catholic Bible
The Coming of the Son of Man[a]
The Ministry in Judea and Jerusalem
Chapter 19
Marriage and Celibacy.[b] 1 When Jesus had finished this discourse, he left Galilee and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Matthew 19:1 A new series of incidents, followed by a great discourse on the end of the world, make up the fifth part of the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus now goes to Judea, location of the official religion.
- Matthew 19:1 The interpreters of the Law thought up many subtle ways of making divorce easy; they lacked understanding of the essential point. Jesus’ purpose is to recover the purity of the original state and the will of the Creator himself for the human race. He could not allow the unity of the couple to be at the mercy of circumstances, since this unity had been asserted by God as a call inherent in the very condition of man and woman (see Gen 2:24).
Did the rule admit exceptions? The phrase in v. 9: “except if the marriage was unlawful,” has been the subject of much debate (on this point see what was said at Mt 5:32). In the Judaism of that age, not to marry seemed something repugnant and almost a crime; not to have a posterity seemed a punishment; however, some religious sects did practice voluntary continence. John and Jesus had renounced marriage in order to live solely for their mission of proclaiming the kingdom of God.
