Genesis 38:13–30

¹³Someone told Tamar that her father-in-law was going to Timnah to shear his sheep. ¹⁴So she changed from the widow’s clothes she had been wearing, covered her face with a veil, and sat down at the entrance to Enaim, a town on the road to Timnah. As she well knew, Judah’s youngest son Shelah had now grown up, and yet she had not been given to him in marriage.

¹⁵When Judah saw her, he thought that she was a prostitute, because she had her face covered. ¹⁶He went over to her at the side of the road and said, “All right, how much do you charge?” (He did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.)

She said, “What will you give me?”

¹⁷He answered, “I will send you a young goat from my flock.”

She said, “All right, if you will give me something to keep as a pledge until you send the goat.”

¹⁸“What shall I give you as a pledge?” he asked.

She answered, “Your seal with its cord and the stick you are carrying.” He gave them to her. Then they had intercourse, and she became pregnant. ¹⁹Tamar went home, took off her veil, and put her widow’s clothes back on.

²⁰Judah sent his friend Hirah to take the goat and get back from the woman the articles he had pledged, but Hirah could not find her. ²¹He asked some men at Enaim, “Where is the prostitute who was here by the road?”

“There has never been a prostitute here,” they answered.

²²He returned to Judah and said, “I couldn’t find her. The men of the place said that there had never been a prostitute there.”

²³Judah said, “Let her keep the things. We don’t want people to laugh at us. I did try to pay her, but you couldn’t find her.”

²⁴About three months later someone said to Judah, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has been acting like a whore, and now she is pregnant.”

Judah ordered, “Take her out and burn her to death.”

²⁵As she was being taken out, she sent word to her father-in-law: “I am pregnant by the man who owns these things. Look at them and see whose they are—this seal with its cord and this stick.”

²⁶Judah recognized them and said, “She is in the right. I have failed in my obligation to her—I should have given her to my son Shelah in marriage.” And Judah never had intercourse with her again.

²⁷When the time came for her to give birth, it was discovered that she was going to have twins. ²⁸While she was in labour, one of them put out an arm; the midwife caught it, tied a red thread round it, and said, “This one was born first.” ²⁹But he pulled his arm back, and his brother was born first. Then the midwife said, “So this is how you break your way out!” So he was named Perez.^{w 30}Then his brother was born with the red thread on his arm, and he was named Zerah.^x