In the forty-fifth jubilee, the second week during the second year [2165], Judah took as a wife for his first-born Er one of the Aramean women whose name was Tamar.

He hated (her) and did not lie with her because his mother was a Canaanite woman and he wanted to marry someone from his mother’s tribe. But his father Judah did not allow him.

That Er, Judah’s first-born, was evil, and the Lord killed him.

Then Judah said to his brother Onan: ‘Go in to your brother’s wife, perform the levirate duty for her, and produce descendants for your brother’.

Onan knew that the descendants would not be his but his brother’s, so he entered the house of his brother’s wife and poured out the semen on the ground. In the Lord’s estimation it was an evil act, and he killed him.

So Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar: ‘Remain in your father’s house as a widow until my son Selom grows up. Then I will give you to him as a wife’.

He grew up, but Judah’s wife Bedsuel did not allow her son Selom to marry (her). Judah’s wife Bedsuel died during the fifth year of this week [2168].

In its sixth year [2169] Judah went up to shear his sheep in Timnah. Tamar was told: ‘Your father-in-law is now going up to shear his sheep in Timnah’.

Then she put aside her widow’s clothing, put on a veil, made herself up, and sat down at the gate near the road to Timnah.

As Judah was going along, he found her and supposed that she was a prostitute. He said to her: ‘Let me come in to you’. She said to him: ‘Come in’. So he came in.

She said to him: ‘Give me my fee’. He said to her: ‘I have nothing with me except the ring on my finger, my neck chain, and my staff which is in my hand’.

She said to him: ‘Give them to me until you send me my fee’. He said to her: ‘I will send you a kid’. He gave them to her. [After he was with her], she became pregnant by him.

Then Judah went to his sheep, but she went to her father’s house.

Judah sent the kid through his Adullamite shepherd, but he failed to find (her). He asked the men of the area: ‘Where is the prostitute who was here’? They said to him: ‘There is no prostitute here, nor do we have any prostitute with us’.

When he returned and told him that he had failed to find (her), he said to him: ‘I asked the men of the area and they said to me: «There is no prostitute here»’. He said: ‘Let her keep (them) so that we may not become the object of mockery’.

When she reached three months, she was visibly pregnant. Judah was told: ‘Your daughter-in-law Tamar has now become pregnant through prostitution’.

Judah went to her father’s house and said to her father and brothers: ‘Bring her out and let her be burned because she has done something impure in Israel’.

When she was brought out to be burned, she sent the ring, the neck chain, and the staff to her father-in-law and said: ‘Recognize whose these are because I am pregnant by him’.

Judah recognized (them) and said: ‘Tamar has been more just than I; therefore, do not burn her’.

For this reason she was not given to Selom, and he did not approach her again.

Afterwards she was pregnant and gave birth to two boys — Perez and Zerah — during the seventh year of this second week [2170].

Following this the seven years of copious harvest (about) which Joseph had told the pharaoh were completed.

Judah knew that what he had done was evil because he had lain with his daughter-in-law. In his own view he considered it evil, and he knew that he had done wrong and erred, for he had uncovered his son’s covering. He began to lament and plead before the Lord because of his sin.

We told him in a dream that it would be forgiven for him because he had pleaded very much and because he had lamented and did not do (it) again.

He had forgiveness because he turned from his sin and from his ignorance, for the sin was a great one before our God. Anyone who acts in this way — anyone who lies with his mother-in-law — is to be burned in fire so that he burns in it because impurity and contamination have come on them. They are to be burned.

Now you order the Israelites that there is to be no impurity among them, for anyone who lies with his daughter-in-law or his mother-in-law has done something that is impure. They are to burn the man who lay with her and the woman. Then he will make anger and punishment desist from Israel.

We told Judah that his two sons had not lain with her. For this reason his descendants were established for another generation and would not be uprooted.

For in his integrity he had gone and demanded punishment because Judah had wanted to burn her on the basis of the law which Abraham had commanded his children.