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  • Honor “What God Has Yoked Together”
    The Watchtower (Study)—2018 | December
    • 10. On what grounds can a Christian divorce and be free to remarry?

      10 Jesus did state the grounds on which a marriage can be ended: “I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the grounds of sexual immorality [Greek, por·neiʹa], and marries another commits adultery.” (Matt. 19:9) He had made the same point in the Sermon on the Mount. (Matt. 5:31, 32) On both occasions, Jesus spoke of “sexual immorality.” That expression covers a range of sexual sins outside of marriage: adultery, prostitution, sex relations between unmarried individuals, homosexuality, and bestiality. If, for example, a married man engages in sexual immorality, his wife can decide whether to divorce him or not. If she divorces him, that would end the marriage in God’s eyes.

  • Honor “What God Has Yoked Together”
    The Watchtower (Study)—2018 | December
    • The Only Scriptural Grounds

      On two occasions, Jesus indicated that the only grounds for a divorce that would free an innocent mate to remarry is por·neiʹa. What does that Greek term mean? Por·neiʹa applies to illicit sexual relations outside Scriptural marriage. It includes adultery, prostitution, and sex relations between unmarried individuals as well as oral and anal sex and the sexual manipulation of the genitals of an individual to whom one is not married.​—See The Watchtower, July 15, 2006, “Questions From Readers.”

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