Genesis 38:12-23

¹²Now after a considerable time Shua’s daughter, the wife of Judah, died; and when the time of mourning was ended, Judah went up to his sheepshearers at Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. ¹³And Tamar was told, “Behold, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.” ¹⁴So she removed her widow’s garments and covered herself with a veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in the gateway of Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah had grown up, and she had not been given to him as a wife. ¹⁵When Judah saw her, he assumed she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. ¹⁶So he turned aside to her by the road, and said, “Here now, let me have relations with you”; for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. And she said, “What will you give me, that you may have relations with me?” ¹⁷He said, therefore, “I will send you a young goat from the flock.” She then said, “Will you give a pledge until you send it?” ¹⁸He said, “What pledge shall I give you?” And she said, “Your seal and your cord, and your staff that is in your hand.” So he gave them to her and had relations with her, and she conceived by him. ¹⁹Then she got up and departed, and removed her veil and put on her widow’s garments.

²⁰When Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite, to receive the pledge from the woman’s hand, he did not find her. ²¹He asked the people of her place, saying, “Where is the temple prostitute who was by the road at Enaim?” But they said, “There has been no temple prostitute here.” ²²So he returned to Judah, and said, “I did not find her; and furthermore, the people of the place said, ‘There has been no temple prostitute here.’ ” ²³Then Judah said, “Let her keep them, otherwise we will become a laughingstock. After all, I sent this young goat, but you did not find her.”