SEVERANCE, a cutting-off — the noun in sefer keritut, the document a husband writes to end a marriage at Deuteronomy 24:1 and 24:3. It is built on karat, to cut, the verb Genesis 15:18 uses of cutting a covenant, so that a marriage is ended in the word a covenant is made in. The phrase stands in four verses of the Hebrew Bible: the two in Deuteronomy, Jeremiah 3:8, where God says he gave one to the northern kingdom, and Isaiah 50:1, where he asks Zion's children to produce their mother's (neither yet on these pages). ⚠ The Torah's own noun for the woman on the far side of the document is a different word, gerushah, the driven-out one, from garash, to drive out: it stands in five verses of the Hebrew Bible — the priest who may not marry her at Leviticus 21:7 and 21:14, the priest's daughter come home as one at 22:13, her vow at Numbers 30:10, and Ezekiel 44:22 — and it never appears in the one chapter that describes the divorce. The Greek New Testament calls the document a biblion apostasiou, a writ of standing-away (Matthew 5:31, 19:7). The shelf prints 'bill of divorcement' (KJV, ASV, Geneva), 'certificate of divorce' (NIV, NWT 1984), «carta de repudio» (RV 1909) and «carta de divorcio» (RV60); this translation prints certificate of severance to keep the cutting audible. → first discussed at Deut 24:1