Genesis 38

¹ It happened at that time that Judah left his brothers, to go down and stay with an Adullamite called Hirah.

² There Judah saw the daughter of a Canaanite called Shua. He made her his wife and slept with her.

³ She conceived and gave birth to a son whom she named Er.

⁴ She conceived again and gave birth to a son whom she named Onan.

⁵ Yet again she gave birth to a son whom she named Shelah. She was at Chezib when she gave birth to him.

⁶ Judah took a wife for his first-born Er, and her name was Tamar.

⁷ But Er, Judah’s first-born, offended Yahweh greatly, so Yahweh brought about his death.

⁸ Then Judah said to Onan, ‘Take your brother’s wife, and do your duty as her brother-in-law, to produce a child for your brother’.

⁹ But Onan, knowing the child would not be his, spilt his seed on the ground every time he slept with his brother’s wife, to avoid providing a child for his brother.

¹⁰ What he did was offensive to Yahweh, so he brought about his death also.

¹¹ Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, ‘Return home as a widow to your father, and wait for my son Shelah to grow up’, for he was thinking, ‘He must not die like his brothers’. So Tamar went back home to her father.

¹² A long time passed, and then Shua’s daughter, the wife of Judah, died. After Judah had been comforted[*a] he went up to Timnah to the men who sheared his sheep, himself and Hirah, his Adullamite friend.

¹³ This was reported to Tamar, ‘Listen, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah for the shearing of his sheep’.

¹⁴ She therefore changed her widow’s clothes, wrapped a veil around her, and sat down, heavily swathed, where the road to Enaim branches off the road to Timnah. Shelah had now grown up, as she saw, and yet she had not been given to him as his wife.

¹⁵ Judah, seeing her, took her for a prostitute, since her face was veiled.

¹⁶ Going up to her on the road, he said, ‘Come, let me sleep with you’. He did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. ‘What will you give me to sleep with me?’ she asked.

¹⁷ ‘I will send you a kid from the flock’ he answered. ‘Agreed, if you give me a pledge until you send it’ she answered.

¹⁸ ‘What pledge shall I give you?’ he asked. ‘Your seal, your cord and the stick you are holding’ she answered. He gave them to her and slept with her, and she conceived by him.

¹⁹ Then she rose and left him, and taking off her veil she put on her widow’s weeds.

²⁰ Judah sent the kid by his Adullamite friend to recover the pledge from the woman. But he did not find her.

²¹ He inquired from the men of the place, ‘Where is the prostitute who was by the roadside at Enaim?’ ‘There has been no prostitute there’, they answered.

²² So returning to Judah he said, ‘I did not find her. What is more, the men of the place told me there had been no prostitute there.’

²³ ‘Let her keep what she has’ Judah replied ‘or we shall become a laughing-stock. At least I sent her this kid, even though you did not find her.’

²⁴ About three months later it was reported to Judah, ‘Your daughter-in-law has played the harlot; furthermore, she is pregnant, as a result of her misconduct’. ‘Take her outside and burn her’ said Judah.

²⁵ But as she was being led off she sent this message to her father-in-law, ‘It was the man to whom these things belong who made me pregnant. Look at them’ she said ‘and see whose seal and cord and stick these are.’

²⁶ Judah examined them and then said, ‘She is in the right, rather than I. This comes of my not giving her to my son Shelah to be his wife.’ He had no further intercourse with her.

²⁷ When the time for her confinement came she was found to have twins in her womb.

²⁸ During the delivery one of them put out a hand, and the midwife caught it and tied a scarlet thread to it, saying, ‘This is the first to arrive’.

²⁹ But he drew his hand back, and it was his brother who came out first. Then she said, ‘What a breach you have opened for yourself!’

³⁰ So he was named Perez. Then his brother came out with the scarlet thread on his hand, so he was named Zerah.