For someone whose marriage has gone quiet, or angry, or cold, and who wants to know what the text actually says about two people bound together.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
The founding sentence about marriage in the Hebrew Bible: a man leaves his parents' household and is joined to his wife, and the two are spoken of as one flesh. It states a bond, not a method for repairing one.
Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.
Malachi accuses men of his own day of discarding the wives of their youth. His claim is that the marriage had a witness beyond the couple, which is why he calls the breaking of it treachery. The Hebrew of verse 16 is difficult and translations differ sharply.
A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.
A proverb about how anger usually escalates: a mild answer lowers the temperature, a cutting one raises it. Like all proverbs it reports the way things generally run, not a technique guaranteed to work on a particular argument.
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.
Love poetry, not instruction. The speaker asks to be worn like a seal, and calls love as strong as death and jealousy as hard as the grave, unquenchable by floods and not for sale. It describes desire's force, painful side included.
Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine. So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley: And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee.
Hosea is told to love an adulterous woman again, and buys her back for silver and barley. This is a prophetic sign-act about God and unfaithful Israel, staged with a real marriage. It is not advice about what a wronged spouse should do.
Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says a person who remembers at the altar that someone holds a grievance against him should leave the offering there and go settle it first. The grievance is treated as more urgent than the worship.
And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.
Paul tells married believers not to separate, then immediately provides for the case where one does: remain unmarried, or be reconciled. Even his strictest passage on this concedes that separation happens, and does not treat it as the end of the person.
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Often read at weddings, it was written to a congregation quarrelling over status and spiritual gifts. The list is mostly negative — love is not envious, not boastful, not easily provoked, keeps no account of wrong — which is what makes it usable between people who share a house.
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
A letter to a congregation about how its members speak to each other: bitterness, rage and the shouting that goes with them put away, kindness and forgiveness in their place. It addresses the habits of speech that outlast the argument which started them.