Historical

Chapter 38

Judah and Tamar.^{[a] 1} About that time Judah went down, away from his brothers, and pitched his tent near a certain Adullamite named Hirah. ² There Judah saw the daughter of a Canaanite named Shua; he married her, and had intercourse with her.^{(A) 3} She conceived and bore a son, whom she named Er. ⁴ Again she conceived and bore a son, whom she named Onan. ⁵ Then she bore still another son, whom she named Shelah. She was in Chezib^[b] when she bore him.^(B)

⁶ Judah got a wife named Tamar for his firstborn, Er. ⁷ But Er, Judah’s firstborn, greatly offended the Lord; so the Lord took his life.^{(C) 8 (D)}Then Judah said to Onan, “Have intercourse with your brother’s wife, in fulfillment of your duty as brother-in-law, and thus preserve your brother’s line.”^{[c] 9} Onan, however, knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he had intercourse with his brother’s wife, he wasted his seed on the ground, to avoid giving offspring to his brother. ¹⁰ What he did greatly offended the Lord, and the Lord took his life too. ¹¹ Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up”—for he feared that Shelah also might die like his brothers. So Tamar went to live in her father’s house.

¹² Time passed, and the daughter of Shua, Judah’s wife, died. After Judah completed the period of mourning, he went up to Timnah, to those who were shearing his sheep, in company with his friend Hirah the Adullamite. ¹³ Then Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is on his way up to Timnah to shear his sheep.” ¹⁴ So she took off her widow’s garments, covered herself with a shawl, and having wrapped herself sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah; for she was aware that, although Shelah was now grown up, she had not been given to him in marriage.^{(E) 15} When Judah saw her, he thought she was a harlot, since she had covered her face. ¹⁶ So he went over to her at the roadside and said, “Come, let me have intercourse with you,” for he did not realize that she was his daughter-in-law. She replied, “What will you pay me for letting you have intercourse with me?” ¹⁷ He answered, “I will send you a young goat from the flock.” “Very well,” she said, “provided you leave me a pledge until you send it.” ¹⁸ Judah asked, “What pledge should I leave you?” She answered, “Your seal and cord,^[d] and the staff in your hand.” So he gave them to her and had intercourse with her, and she conceived by him. ¹⁹ After she got up and went away, she took off her shawl and put on her widow’s garments again.

²⁰ Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite to recover the pledge from the woman; but he did not find her. ²¹ So he asked the men of that place, “Where is the prostitute,^[e] the one by the roadside in Enaim?” But they answered, “No prostitute has been here.” ²² He went back to Judah and told him, “I did not find her; and besides, the men of the place said, ‘No prostitute has been here.’” ²³ “Let her keep the things,” Judah replied; “otherwise we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you did not find her.”

²⁴ About three months later, Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has acted like a harlot and now she is pregnant from her harlotry.” Judah said, “Bring her out; let her be burned.” ²⁵ But as she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, “It is by the man to whom these things belong that I am pregnant.” Then she said, “See whose seal and cord and staff these are.” ²⁶ Judah recognized them and said, “She is in the right rather than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” He had no further sexual relations with her.

²⁷ When the time of her delivery came, there were twins in her womb.^{(F) 28} While she was giving birth, one put out his hand; and the midwife took and tied a crimson thread on his hand, noting, “This one came out first.” ^29 (G)But as he withdrew his hand, his brother came out; and she said, “What a breach you have made for yourself!” So he was called Perez.^{[f] 30} Afterward his brother, who had the crimson thread on his hand, came out; he was called Zerah.^[g](H)

Chapter 39

Joseph’s Temptation. ¹ When Joseph was taken down to Egypt, an Egyptian, Potiphar, an official of Pharaoh and his chief steward, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there. ^2 (I)The Lord was with Joseph and he enjoyed great success and was assigned to the household of his Egyptian master. ³ When his master saw that the Lord was with him and brought him success in whatever he did, ⁴ he favored Joseph and made him his personal attendant; he put him in charge of his household and entrusted to him all his possessions.^{(J) 5} From the moment that he put him in charge of his household and all his possessions, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; the Lord’s blessing was on everything he owned, both inside the house and out. ⁶ Having left everything he owned in Joseph’s charge, he gave no thought, with Joseph there, to anything but the food he ate.

Now Joseph was well-built and handsome. ⁷ After a time, his master’s wife looked at him with longing and said, “Lie with me.” ⁸ But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, as long as I am here, my master does not give a thought to anything in the house, but has entrusted to me all he owns. ⁹ He has no more authority in this house than I do. He has withheld from me nothing but you, since you are his wife. How, then, could I do this great wrong and sin against God?” ¹⁰ Although she spoke to him day after day, he would not agree to lie with her, or even be near her.^(K)

¹¹ One such day, when Joseph came into the house to do his work, and none of the household servants were then in the house, ¹² she laid hold of him by his cloak, saying, “Lie with me!” But leaving the cloak in her hand, he escaped and ran outside. ¹³ When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand as he escaped outside, ¹⁴ she cried out to her household servants and told them, “Look! My husband has brought us a Hebrew man to mock us! He came in here to lie with me, but I cried out loudly. ¹⁵ When he heard me scream, he left his cloak beside me and escaped and ran outside.”

¹⁶ She kept the cloak with her until his master came home. ¹⁷ Then she told him the same story: “The Hebrew slave whom you brought us came to me to amuse himself at my expense. ¹⁸ But when I screamed, he left his cloak beside me and escaped outside.” ¹⁹ When the master heard his wife’s story in which she reported, “Thus and so your servant did to me,” he became enraged. ²⁰ Joseph’s master seized him and put him into the jail where the king’s prisoners were confined.^(L) And there he sat, in jail.

²¹ But the Lord was with Joseph, and showed him kindness by making the chief jailer well-disposed toward him.^{(M) 22} The chief jailer put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners in the jail. Everything that had to be done there, he was the one to do it. ²³ The chief jailer did not have to look after anything that was in Joseph’s charge, since the Lord was with him and was bringing success to whatever he was doing.

Chapter 40

The Dreams Interpreted. ^1 [h]Some time afterward, the royal cupbearer and baker offended their lord, the king of Egypt. ² Pharaoh was angry with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, ³ and he put them in custody in the house of the chief steward, the same jail where Joseph was confined. ⁴ The chief steward assigned Joseph to them, and he became their attendant.

After they had been in custody for some time, ⁵ the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt who were confined in the jail both had dreams on the same night, each his own dream and each dream with its own meaning. ⁶ When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they looked disturbed. ⁷ So he asked Pharaoh’s officials who were with him in custody in his master’s house, “Why do you look so troubled today?” ⁸ They answered him, “We have had dreams, but there is no one to interpret them.” Joseph said to them, “Do interpretations not come from God? Please tell me the dreams.”^(N)

⁹ Then the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. “In my dream,” he said, “I saw a vine in front of me, ¹⁰ and on the vine were three branches. It had barely budded when its blossoms came out, and its clusters ripened into grapes. ¹¹ Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand; so I took the grapes, pressed them out into his cup, and put it in Pharaoh’s hand.” ¹² Joseph said to him: “This is its interpretation. The three branches are three days; ¹³ within three days Pharaoh will single you out^[i] and restore you to your post. You will be handing Pharaoh his cup as you formerly did when you were his cupbearer. ¹⁴ Only think of me when all is well with you, and please do me the great favor of mentioning me to Pharaoh, to get me out of this place. ¹⁵ The truth is that I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and I have not done anything here that they should have put me into a dungeon.”

¹⁶ When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favorable interpretation, he said to him: “I too had a dream. In it I had three bread baskets on my head; ¹⁷ in the top one were all kinds of bakery products for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.” ¹⁸ Joseph said to him in reply: “This is its interpretation. The three baskets are three days; ¹⁹ within three days Pharaoh will single you out and will impale you on a stake, and the birds will be eating your flesh.”

²⁰ And so on the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, when he gave a banquet to all his servants, he singled out the chief cupbearer and chief baker in the midst of his servants. ²¹ He restored the chief cupbearer to his office, so that he again handed the cup to Pharaoh; ²² but the chief baker he impaled—just as Joseph had told them in his interpretation. ²³ Yet the chief cupbearer did not think of Joseph; he forgot him.