Joseph saw the descendants of Ephraim to the third generation. He also saw the children of Makir the son of Manasseh; they were given special inheritance rights by Joseph.

“When you assist the Hebrew women in childbirth, observe at the delivery: If it is a son, kill him, but if it is a daughter, she may live.”

But the midwives feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.

Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live?”

Now Eleazar son of Aaron married one of the daughters of Putiel and she bore him Phinehas. These are the heads of the fathers’ households of Levi according to their clans.

If his master gave him a wife, and she bore sons or daughters, the wife and the children will belong to her master, and he will go out by himself.

“Tell the Israelites, ‘When a woman produces offspring and bears a male child, she will be unclean seven days, as she is unclean during the days of her menstruation.

If she bears a female child, she will be impure fourteen days as during her menstrual flow, and she will remain sixty-six days in blood purity.

The priest is to present it before the Lord and make atonement on her behalf, and she will be clean from her flow of blood. This is the law of the one who bears a child, for the male or the female child.

Also you may buy slaves from the children of the foreigners who reside with you, and from their families that are with you, whom they have fathered in your land, they may become your property.

These are the families of the Levites: the family of the Libnites, the family of the Hebronites, the family of the Mahlites, the family of the Mushites, the family of the Korahites. Kohath became the father of Amram.

After you have produced children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, if you become corrupt and make an image of any kind and do other evil things before the Lord your God that enrage him,

You must set apart for the Lord your God every firstborn male born to your herds and flocks. You must not work the firstborn of your bulls or shear the firstborn of your flocks.

Suppose a man has two wives, one whom he loves more than the other, and they both bear him sons, with the firstborn being the child of the less loved wife.

Then the first son she bears will continue the name of the dead brother, thus preventing his name from being blotted out of Israel.

Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a brave warrior. His mother was a prostitute, but Gilead was his father.

They named it Dan after their ancestor, who was one of Israel’s sons. But the city’s name used to be Laish.

May your family become like the family of Perez – whom Tamar bore to Judah – through the descendants the Lord gives you by this young woman.”

So Boaz married Ruth and had sexual relations with her. The Lord enabled her to conceive and she gave birth to a son.

He will encourage you and provide for you when you are old, for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, has given him birth. She is better to you than seven sons!”