This is what the Lord says: “People of Israel, you say I divorced your mother. Then where is the paper that proves it? Or do you think I sold you to pay a debt? Because of the evil things you did, I sold you. Because of the times she turned against me, your mother was sent away.
“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should her first husband come back to her again? If he went back to her, wouldn’t the land become completely unclean? But you have acted like a prostitute with many lovers, and now you want to come back to me?” says the Lord.
But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife forces her to be guilty of adultery. The only reason for a man to divorce his wife is if she has sexual relations with another man. And anyone who marries that divorced woman is guilty of adultery.
For all the others I say this (I am saying this, not the Lord): If a Christian man has a wife who is not a believer, and she is happy to live with him, he must not divorce her.
They must make him pay about two and one-half pounds of silver to the girl’s father, because the man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. The girl will continue to be the man’s wife, and he may not divorce her as long as he lives.