⁹ He had thirty sons and thirty daughters. He gave his daughters away in marriage to those outside his clan, and for his sons he brought in thirty young women as wives from outside his clan. Ibzan led Israel seven years.

¹⁹ Laban said, “It’s better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me.”

28 So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed^(A) him. Then he commanded him: “Do not marry a Canaanite woman.^{(B) 2} Go at once to Paddan Aram,^[a](C) to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel.^(D) Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.^{(E) 3} May God Almighty^[b](F) bless^(G) you and make you fruitful^(H) and increase your numbers^(I) until you become a community of peoples. ⁴ May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham,^(J) so that you may take possession of the land^(K) where you now reside as a foreigner,^(L) the land God gave to Abraham.”

⁵¹ Here is Rebekah; take her and go, and let her become the wife of your master’s son, as the Lord has directed.^(A)”

³ I want you to swear^(A) by the Lord, the God of heaven^(B) and the God of earth,^(C) that you will not get a wife for my son^(D) from the daughters of the Canaanites,^(E) among whom I am living,^{(F) 4} but will go to my country and my own relatives^(G) and get a wife for my son Isaac.^(H)”

²¹ While he was living in the Desert of Paran,^(A) his mother got a wife for him^(B) from Egypt.

¹⁴ So I counsel younger widows to marry,^(A) to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander.^(B)

³⁶ If anyone is worried that he might not be acting honorably toward the virgin he is engaged to, and if his passions are too strong^[a] and he feels he ought to marry, he should do as he wants. He is not sinning.^(A) They should get married. ³⁷ But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin—this man also does the right thing. ³⁸ So then, he who marries the virgin does right,^(B) but he who does not marry her does better.^[b]