So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, yet it seemed but a few days because of his love for her.

Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel was shapely and beautiful.

Jacob resumed his journey and came to the land of the people of the east. He looked and saw a well in the field, and near it lay three flocks of sheep, because the sheep were watered from this well. And a large stone covered the mouth of the well. When all the flocks had been gathered there, the shepherds would roll away the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep. Then they would return the stone to its place over the mouth of the well. “My brothers,” Jacob asked the shepherds, “where are you from?” “We are from Haran,” they answered. “Do you know Laban the grandson of Nahor?” Jacob asked. “We know him,” they replied. . . .

Thus Jacob became exceedingly prosperous. He owned large flocks, maidservants and menservants, and camels and donkeys.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. . . .

When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren.

So Jacob was left all alone, and there a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

Simeon and Levi are brothers; their swords are weapons of violence. May I never enter their council; may I never join their assembly. For they kill men in their anger, and hamstring oxen on a whim. Cursed be their anger, for it is strong, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.

For every firstborn male in Israel is Mine, both man and beast. I set them apart for Myself on the day I struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. But I have taken the Levites in place of all the firstborn among the sons of Israel. And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the Israelites, to perform the service for the Israelites at the Tent of Meeting and to make atonement on their behalf, so that no plague will come against the Israelites when they approach the sanctuary.”

Instead, he must acknowledge the firstborn, the son of his unloved wife, by giving him a double portion of all that he has. For that son is the firstfruits of his father’s strength; the right of the firstborn belongs to him.

Later, Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD heard his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived.

Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.” So Abram departed, as the LORD had directed him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. And Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions and people they had acquired in Haran, and set out for the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, . . .

But the children inside her struggled with each other, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So Rebekah went to inquire of the LORD,

One day, while Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the field and was famished. He said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am famished.” (That is why he was also called Edom.) “First sell me your birthright,” Jacob replied. “Look,” said Esau, “I am about to die, so what good is a birthright to me?” “Swear to me first,” Jacob said. So Esau swore to Jacob and sold him the birthright. . . .

But Isaac replied, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.”

Then God remembered Rachel. He listened to her and opened her womb,

Then God remembered Rachel. He listened to her and opened her womb, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. “God has taken away my shame,” she said. She named him Joseph, and said, “May the LORD add to me another son.”

She named him Joseph, and said, “May the LORD add to me another son.”

But Laban replied, “If I have found favor in your eyes, please stay. I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you.”

After David had finished speaking with Saul, the souls of Jonathan and David were knit together, and Jonathan loved him as himself.

When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot bear to watch the boy die!” And as she sat nearby, she lifted up her voice and wept. Then God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, “What is wrong, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he lies. Get up, lift up the boy, and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. And Isaac was sixty years old when the twins were born.

Look, I am with you, and I will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Laban replied, “Better that I give her to you than to another. Stay here with me.”

Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older.

Jacob slept with Rachel as well, and indeed, he loved Rachel more than Leah. So he worked for Laban another seven years.

Then she said, “Here is my maidservant Bilhah. Sleep with her, that she may bear children for me, so that through her I too can build a family.”

Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, excelling in honor, excelling in power.

And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not take lightly the discipline of the Lord, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you. For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastises every son He receives.”

You must not take your wife’s sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is still alive.

so that there should be no division in the body, but that its members should have mutual concern for one another.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. . . .

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, To Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. As I urged you on my departure to Macedonia, you should stay on at Ephesus to instruct certain men not to teach false doctrines or devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculation rather than the stewardship of God’s work, which is by faith. The goal of our instruction is the love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and a sincere faith. . . .

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and does not listen to them when disciplined, his father and mother are to lay hold of him and bring him to the elders of his city, to the gate of his hometown, and say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he does not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his city will stone him to death. So you must purge the evil from among you, and all Israel will hear and be afraid.

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery;

Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will judge the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will depart with many possessions.

The LORD God also said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make for him a suitable helper.”

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maidservants, so that they could again bear children—

Jacob resumed his journey and came to the land of the people of the east.

While he was still speaking with them, Rachel arrived with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess.

To the woman He said: “I will sharply increase your pain in childbirth; in pain you will bring forth children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon which is at the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was struck near that tendon.

Yes, he struggled with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought His favor; he found Him at Bethel and spoke with Him there—

Anything on which she lies or sits during her menstruation will be unclean,

If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must surely be put to death.

The deliverers will ascend Mount Zion to rule over the mountains of Esau. And the kingdom will belong to the LORD.

Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always thank my God for you because of the grace He has given you in Christ Jesus. For in Him you have been enriched in every way, in all speech and all knowledge, . . .

In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.

For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason a woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels.

For the body does not consist of one part, but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact, God has arranged the members of the body, every one of them, according to His design. . . .

“Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything. “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food,” but God will destroy them both. The body is not intended for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By His power God raised the Lord from the dead, and He will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Or don’t you know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” . . .

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

Now about virgins, I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy.

The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife. Do not deprive each other, except by mutual consent and for a time, so you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you through your lack of self-control.

However, if someone thinks he is acting inappropriately toward his betrothed, and if she is beyond her youth and they ought to marry, let him do as he wishes; he is not sinning; they should get married. But the man who is firmly established in his heart and under no constraint, with control over his will and resolve in his heart not to marry the virgin, he will do well. So then, he who marries the virgin does well, but he who does not marry her does even better. A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, as long as he belongs to the Lord. In my judgment, however, she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God. . . .

Do not deprive each other, except by mutual consent and for a time, so you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you through your lack of self-control.

I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.

He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines—and his wives turned his heart away.

He banished the male shrine prostitutes from the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.

And the chariot was washed at the pool of Samaria where the prostitutes bathed, and the dogs licked up Ahab’s blood, according to the word that the LORD had spoken.

Then Saul ordered his son Jonathan and all his servants to kill David. But Jonathan delighted greatly in David,

First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be offered for everyone— for kings and all those in authority—so that we may lead tranquil and quiet lives in all godliness and dignity. This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, . . .

An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the house of the LORD, where the women had woven tapestries for Asherah.

I grieve for you, Jonathan, my brother. You were delightful to me; your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women.

Beloved, I pray that in every way you may prosper and enjoy good health, as your soul also prospers.

then the man who lay with her must pay the young woman’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she must become his wife because he has violated her. He must not divorce her as long as he lives.

You must not bring the wages of a prostitute, whether female or male, into the house of the LORD your God to fulfill any vow, because both are detestable to the LORD your God.

If a man is newly married, he must not be sent to war or be pressed into any duty. For one year he is free to stay at home and bring joy to the wife he has married.

Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not My wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adultery from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.

Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her path with thorns; I will enclose her with a wall, so she cannot find her way.

“Take up your harp, stroll through the city, O forgotten harlot. Make sweet melody, sing many a song, so you will be remembered.”

No longer will you be called Forsaken, nor your land named Desolate; but you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the LORD will take delight in you, and your land will be His bride. For as a young man marries a young woman, so your sons will marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you.

For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

“You must not marry or have sons or daughters in this place.”

This is what the LORD says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

She also said to her father, “Let me do this one thing: Let me wander for two months through the mountains with my friends and mourn my virginity.”

After two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she had never had relations with a man. So it has become a custom in Israel

If a man lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness. Both must surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

If a man lies carnally with an animal, he must be put to death. And you are also to kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal to mate with it, you must kill both the woman and the animal. They must surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

If a man marries his sister, whether the daughter of his father or of his mother, and they have sexual relations, it is a disgrace. They must be cut off in the sight of their people. He has uncovered the nakedness of his sister; he shall bear his iniquity. If a man lies with a menstruating woman and has sexual relations with her, he has exposed the source of her flow, and she has uncovered the source of her blood. Both of them must be cut off from among their people. You must not have sexual relations with the sister of your mother or your father, for it is exposing one’s own kin; both shall bear their iniquity. If a man lies with his uncle’s wife, he has uncovered the nakedness of his uncle. They will bear their sin; they shall die childless. If a man marries his brother’s wife, it is an act of impurity. He has uncovered the nakedness of his brother; they shall be childless.

You are therefore to keep all My statutes and ordinances, so that the land where I am bringing you to live will not vomit you out. You must not follow the statutes of the nations I am driving out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them.

But the one who unknowingly does things worthy of punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and from him who has been entrusted with much, even more will be demanded.

Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

So He told them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.

But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, brings adultery upon her. And he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab, who also invited them to the sacrifices for their gods. And the people ate and bowed down to these gods. So Israel joined in worshiping Baal of Peor, and the anger of the LORD burned against them.

May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth: A loving doe, a graceful fawn—may her breasts satisfy you always; may you be captivated by her love forever.

Now in the street, now in the squares, she lurks at every corner.

A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for the sake of His name. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. . . .

For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

The commandments “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and any other commandments, are summed up in this one decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is Solomon’s Song of Songs. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is more delightful than wine. The fragrance of your perfume is pleasing; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the maidens adore you. Take me away with you—let us hurry! May the king bring me to his chambers. We will rejoice and delight in you; we will praise your love more than wine. It is only right that they adore you. I am dark, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. . . .

I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valley. Like a lily among the thorns is my darling among the maidens. Like an apricot tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste. He has brought me to the house of wine, and his banner over me is love. Sustain me with raisins; refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love. . . .

My beloved put his hand to the latch; my heart pounded for him. I rose up to open for my beloved. My hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with flowing myrrh on the handles of the bolt.

How fair and pleasant you are, O love, with your delights! Your stature is like a palm tree; your breasts are clusters of fruit. I said, “I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit.” May your breasts be like clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the finest wine. May it flow smoothly to my beloved, gliding gently over lips and teeth.