1 AND now I command you, my children, hearken to Judah your father, and keep my sayings to perform all the ordinances of the Lord, and to obey the commands of God. (T12) 2 And walk not after your lusts, nor in the imaginations of your thoughts in haughtiness of heart; and glory not in the deeds and strength of your youth, for this also is evil in the eyes of the Lord. (T12) 3 Since I also gloried that in wars no comely woman's face ever enticed me, and reproved Reuben my brother concerning Bilhah, the wife of my father, the spirits of jealousy and of fornication arrayed themselves against me, until I lay with Bathshua the Canaanite, and Tamar, who was espoused to my sons. (T12) 4 For I said to my father-in-law: I will take counsel with my father, and so will I take thy daughter. (T12) 5 And he was unwilling but he showed me a boundless store of gold in his daughter's behalf; for be was a king. (T12) 6 And he adorned her with gold and pearls, and caused her to pour out wine for us at the feast with the beauty of women. (T12) 7 And the wine turned aside my eyes, and pleasure blinded my heart. (T12) 8 And I became enamoured of and I lay with her, and transgressed the commandment of the Lord and the commandment of my fathers, and I took her to wife. (T12) 9 And the Lord rewarded me according to the imagination of my heart, inasmuch as I had no joy in her children. (T12) 10 And now, my children, I say unto you, be not drunk with wine; for wine turneth the mind away from, the truth, and inspires the passion of lust, and leadeth the eyes into error. (T12) 11 For the spirit of fornication hath wine as a minister to give pleasure to the mind; for these two also take away the mind of man. (T12) 12 For if a man drink wine to drunkenness, it disturbeth the mind with filthy thoughts leading to fornication, and heateth the body to carnal union; and if the occasion of the lust be present, he worketh the sin, and is not ashamed. (T12) 13 Such is the inebriated man, my children; for he who is drunken reverenceth no man. (T12) 14 For, lo, it made me also to err, so that I was not ashamed of the multitude in the city, in that before the eyes of all I turned aside unto Tamar, and I wrought a great sin, and I uncovered the covering of my sons' shame. (T12) 15 After I had drunk wine I reverenced not the commandment of God, and I took a woman of Canaan to wife. (T12) 16 For much discretion needeth the man who drinketh wine, my children; and herein is discretion in drinking wine, a man may drink so long as he preserveth modesty. (T12) 17 But if he go beyond this limit the spirit of deceit attacketh his mind, and it maketh the drunkard to talk filthily, and to transgress and not to be ashamed, but even to glory in his shame, and… (T12)
Testament of Judah 3:1–50
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Mandates 29:1–3
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Sirach 47:19–21
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Testament of Judah 2:16–18
16 And I wished to give Shelah also to her, but his mother did not permit it; for she wrought evil against Tamar, because she was not the daughters of Canaan, as she also herself was. (T12) 17 And I knew that the race of the Canaanites was wicked, but the impulse of youth… (T12)
Testament of Zebulun 2:30–32
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Testament of Reuben 1:5–7
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1 Esdras 3:17–19
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Job 36:20–22
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Testament of Issachar 2:1–2
1 KNOW ye therefore, my children, that in the last times your sons will forsake singleness, and will cleave unto insatiable desire. (T12) 2 And leaving guilelessness, will draw near to malice; and forsaking the commandments of the Lord, they will cleave unto Beliar. (T12)
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