Tobit 4:11-13

Common English Bible

¹¹ For everyone who does it, donating money to the needy is a good gift in the sight of the Most High.

¹² “Child, keep yourself away from all inappropriate sex. First, take a wife from the descendants of your ancestors, and don’t take a foreign woman who isn’t from your ancestral tribe, for we are children of the prophets. Noah was first a prophet, and then Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, our ancestors from earlier times. Remember, my child, that they all took wives from their relatives.^[a] They were blessed through their children, and their descendants will inherit the land.

¹³ “And now, my child, love your relatives and don’t be too proud in your heart to take a daughter from the descendants of your people as your wife. In pride there is much ruin and instability, and laziness results in loss and great poverty, for laziness is the mother of hunger.