Genesis 38:6-10

The Voice

⁶ Now Judah arranged for Er, his firstborn, to marry a woman named Tamar. ⁷ But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was a particularly wretched human being in the eyes of the Eternal One, and so the Eternal ended his life. Judah summoned his second son, Onan.

⁹ Resentful that any child born in this kind of marriage would not be his, Onan would interrupt intercourse and spill his semen onto the ground whenever he slept with his brother’s wife. That way he would not father a child that would belong to his brother. ¹⁰ Onan’s selfish behavior was as wretched as his brother’s to the eyes of the Eternal One; so the Eternal ended Onan’s life like his brother.