Tobit 4:11-13

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

¹¹ Indeed, almsgiving, for all who practice it, is an excellent offering in the presence of the Most High.

¹² “Beware, my son, of every kind of sexual immorality. First of all, marry a woman from among the descendants of your ancestors; do not marry a foreign woman, who is not of your father’s tribe, for we are the descendants of prophets and true-born sons of prophets. The first prophet was^[a] Abraham, then Isaac and Jacob, our ancestors of old. Remember, my son, that these all took wives from among their kindred. They were blessed in their children, and their posterity will inherit the land.^{(A) 13} So now, my son, love your kindred, and in your heart do not be so arrogant against the daughters of the members of your people as to refuse to take one of them as a wife. For in arrogance there is ruin and great confusion, and in idleness there is loss and dire poverty, because idleness is the mother of famine.^(B)