At that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful ¹  to God. For ²  three months he was brought up in his father’s house,

Endure your suffering ¹  as discipline; ²  God is treating you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline?

But if you do not experience discipline, ¹  something all sons ²  have shared in, then you are illegitimate and are not sons.

You have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ ¹  has been fathered ²  by God, and everyone who loves the father ³  loves the child fathered by him. ⁴ 

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.

Then I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She replied, ‘The daughter of Bethuel the son of Nahor, whom Milcah bore to Nahor.’ ¹  I put the ring in her nose and the bracelets on her wrists.

Then Jacob prayed, ¹  “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord, you said ²  to me, ‘Return to your land and to your relatives and I will make you prosper.’ ³ 

The blessings of your father are greater than ¹  the blessings of the eternal mountains ²  or the desirable things of the age-old hills. They will be on the head of Joseph and on the brow of the prince of his brothers. ³ 

Moreover, he has raised accusations of impropriety by saying, ‘I discovered your daughter was not a virgin,’ but this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity!” The cloth must then be spread out ¹  before the city’s elders.

The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone.

He said to his father and mother, “I have not seen him,” ¹  and he did not acknowledge his own brothers or know his own children, for they kept your word, and guarded your covenant.

They abandoned the Lord God of their ancestors ¹  who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods – the gods of the nations who lived around them. They worshiped ²  them and made the Lord angry.

But they did not obey ¹  their leaders. Instead they prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped ²  them. They quickly turned aside from the path ³  their ancestors ⁴  had walked. Their ancestors had obeyed the Lord’s commands, but they did not. ⁵ 

When a leader died, the next generation ¹  would again ²  act more wickedly than the previous one. ³  They would follow after other gods, worshiping them ⁴  and bowing down to them. They did not give up ⁵  their practices or their stubborn ways.

Go back home, my daughters! For I am too old to get married again. ¹  Even if I thought that there was hope that I could get married tonight and conceive sons, ² 

for your sins and your ancestors’ sins,” ¹  says the Lord. “Because they burned incense on the mountains and offended ²  me on the hills, I will punish them in full measure.” ³ 

“The Lord did indeed remember and call to mind what you did! He remembered the sacrifices you and your ancestors, your kings, your leaders, and all the rest of the people of the land offered to other gods ¹  in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. ² 

All who encountered them devoured them. Their enemies who did this said, ‘We are not liable for punishment! For those people have sinned against the Lord, their true pasture. ¹  They have sinned against the Lord in whom their ancestors ²  trusted.’ ³ 

“Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the former prophets called out, saying, ‘The Lord who rules over all says, “Turn now from your evil wickedness,”’ but they would by no means obey me,” says the Lord.