24. About 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.”
25. As 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.”
26. Judah 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.
27. When the time came for her to give birth, it was discovered that she was going to have twins.
28. While 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.”