Translation
Now to those who are married, I give this charge (not I but the LORD):
Go to footnote numberA wife is not to be separated from her husband.
Go to footnote numberParaphrase
(What follows is not something that has come to me by revelation from the Lord, but something that THE SUPREME RULER, Jesus Christ, said while He was with us here on earth.) Now to those who continue in a married condition, I give this charge: A wife should not separate herself from her husband,
Footnotes
1
Elsewhere Paul indicated that all the commands he gave came from the Lord, none of them were from him personally; he was simply a conduit for God’s words (see 1 Cor 14:37 and 1 Thess 4:15). Regarding the entire body of truth in the New Testament era, some of it came from the Old Testament and remained unchanged, some of it was principles from the Old Testament, some of it was things that Jesus taught while here on earth, and some of it was revealed to the Apostles by the Holy Spirit after Jesus returned to heaven. The point being made here is that what he will say next comes directly from Jesus, thus it carries more weight than what was revealed to the Apostles by the Holy Spirit. But none of what he wrote was Paul’s personal opinion apart from divine inspiration.
2
When did Jesus say this? We have record of Jesus addressing this issue in Matthew 5:32, Matthew 19:3-9, and Mark 10:2-12. All three of these passages permit divorce but indicate that it should never be taken lightly and there are some serious consequences for those that go that direction. While Jesus permitted divorce, He taught that every effort should be made to avoid it, and that divorce was not God’s original plan; God’s desired system is that one man marry one woman and remain married until they are separated by death.