⁶ Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.

⁹ He had thirty sons, and thirty daughters he gave in marriage outside his clan, and thirty daughters he brought in from outside for his sons. And he judged Israel seven years.

¹⁹ Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me.”

Jacob Sent to Laban

28 Then Isaac called Jacob ^(A)and blessed him and directed him, ^(B)“You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. ^2 (C)Arise, go to Paddan-aram to the house of ^(D)Bethuel your mother's father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban your mother's brother. ^3 (E)God Almighty^[a] bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. ⁴ May he give ^(F)the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of ^(G)the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham!”

⁵¹ Behold, Rebekah is before you; take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master's son, ^(A)as the Lord has spoken.”

³ that I may make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and God of the earth, that ^(A)you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell, ^4 (B)but will go to my country and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac.”

²¹ He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

¹⁴ So I would have ^(A)younger widows marry, bear children, ^(B)manage their households, and ^(C)give the adversary no occasion for slander.

³⁶ If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed,^[a] if his^[b] passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin. ³⁷ But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. ³⁸ So then he who marries his betrothed ^(A)does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.

² “You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. ³ For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bore them and the fathers who fathered them in this land: ^4 (A)They shall die of deadly diseases. ^(B)They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried. ^(C)They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. ^(D)They shall perish by the sword and by famine, ^(E)and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth.