You must not have sexual intercourse with both a woman and her daughter; you must not take as wife either her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter to have intercourse with them. ¹  They are closely related to her ²  – it is lewdness. ³ 

She then said to her father, “Please grant me this one wish. ¹  For two months allow me to walk through the hills with my friends and mourn my virginity.” ² 

He said, “Who are you?” ¹  She replied, “I am Ruth, your servant. ²  Marry your servant, ³  for you are a guardian of the family interests.” ⁴ 

(Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had attacked and captured Gezer. He burned it and killed the Canaanites who lived in the city. He gave it as a wedding present to his daughter, who had married Solomon.)

They came from nations about which the Lord had warned the Israelites, “You must not establish friendly relations with them! ¹  If you do, they will surely shift your allegiance to their gods.” ²  But Solomon was irresistibly attracted to them. ³ 

“Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the Lord, “for I am your true master. ¹  If you do, ²  I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion.

For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” ¹  also said, “Do not murder.” ²  Now if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a violator of the law.

Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s house until Shelah my son grows up.” For he thought, ¹  “I don’t want him to die like his brothers.” ²  So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.

“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife, he may not take her back again. ¹  Doing that would utterly defile the land. ²  But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods. ³  So what makes you think you can return to me?” ⁴  says the Lord.

So she removed her widow’s clothes and covered herself with a veil. She wrapped herself and sat at the entrance to Enaim which is on the way to Timnah. (She did this because ¹  she saw that she had not been given to Shelah as a wife, even though he had now grown up.) ² 

“‘If a man has sexual intercourse with ¹  his sister, whether the daughter of his father or his mother, so that he sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace. They must be cut off in the sight of the children of their people. ²  He has exposed his sister’s nakedness; he will bear his punishment for iniquity. ³ 

Then the priest will put the woman under oath and say to the her, “If no other ¹  man has had sexual relations with you, and if you have not gone astray and become defiled while under your husband’s authority, may you be free from this bitter water that brings a curse. ² 

For there are some eunuchs who were that way from birth, ¹  and some who were made eunuchs ²  by others, ³  and some who became eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who is able to accept this should accept it.”

Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her ¹  to be my wife? ²  Here is your wife! ³  Take her and go!” ⁴ 

Later the older daughter said ¹  to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man anywhere nearby ²  to have sexual relations with us, ³  according to the way of all the world.

What’s more, ¹  she is indeed my sister, my father’s daughter, but not my mother’s daughter. She became my wife.

so that I may make you solemnly promise ¹  by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth: You must not acquire ²  a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living.

My master made me swear an oath. He said, ‘You must not acquire a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living,

Leave immediately ¹  for Paddan Aram! Go to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and find yourself a wife there, among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.

Laban replied, “I’d rather give her to you than to another man. ¹  Stay with me.”