Testament of Judah 12

1After this, when Tamar had been a widow for two years and heard that I was going up to shear the sheep, she adorned herself with bridal attire and sat in Enaim, at the city gate of the inn.

2For it was a law of the Amorites that a widow should sit openly in prostitution.

3So when I was drunk with wine, I did not recognize her, and she deceived me by her beauty through the appearance of her adornment.

4And turning aside to her, I said, “I will come in to you.” And she said, “What will you give me?” And I gave her my staff and my ring and the diadem of my kingdom as a pledge. And when I had gone in to her, she conceived.

5But I, not knowing what I had done, wanted to kill her. But she sent the pledges secretly and put me to shame.

6And when I called her, I also heard the secret words that, while sleeping with her in my drunkenness, I had spoken. And I was not able to kill her, because it was from the Lord.

7For I said, “Perhaps she acted deceitfully, having received the pledge from another.”

8But I did not approach her again for the rest of my life, because I had done this abomination in all Israel.

9Yet those in the city said that there had been no prostitute at the gate, because she had come from another place and sat at the gate for a short time.

10And I supposed that no one knew that I had gone in to her.

11And after this we came into Egypt to Joseph because of the famine.

12I was forty-six years old, and I spent seventy-three years in Egypt.