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The text below is adapted from the ASV.
1 Now, it happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers, and turned in to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. 2 And Judah saw there the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua; and he took her, and went to bed with her. 3 And she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er. 4 And she conceived again, and bore a son, and she called his name Onan. 5 And she yet again bore a son, and called his name Shelah. And he was at Chezib when she bore him.
6 And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. 7 And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of Yahweh, and Yahweh killed him. 8 And Judah said to Onan, Go in to your brother's wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her, and raise up seed for your brother. 9 And Onan knew that the seed would not be his, and so, when he went to bed with his brother's wife, he spilled it on the ground, to avoid giving seed to his brother. 10 And the thing which he did was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and he killed him also.
11 Then Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, Remain a widow in your father's house, till Shelah my son is grown up, because he thought, lest he also die like his brothers. And Tamar went and dwelt in her father's house.
12 And after many days, Shua's daughter, the wife of Judah, died; and Judah was comforted, and went up to his sheep-shearers to Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. 13 And it was told Tamar, saying, Behold, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep. 14 And she put off the garments of her widowhood, and covered herself with her veil, and wrapped herself, and sat by the gate of Enaim, which is by the way to Timnah; because she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she was not given to him as wife.
15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, because she had covered her face. 16 And he turned to her by the way, and said, Come, please, let me come to bed with you, because he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.
And she said, What will you give me, that you may come to bed with me.
17 And he said, I will send you a kid of the goats from the flock.
And she said, Will you give me a pledge until you send it?
18 And he said, What pledge shall I give you?
And she said, Your signet and your cord, and your staff that is in your hand. And he gave them to her, and came to bed with her, and she conceived by him. 19 And she arose, and went away, and put off her veil from her, and put on the garments of her widowhood. 20 And Judah sent the kid of the goats by the hand of his friend the Adullamite, to receive the pledge from the woman's hand, but he did not find her.
21 Then he said to the men of her place, Where is the prostitute who was at Enaim by the roadside?
And they said, There has been no prostitute here.
22 And he returned to Judah, and said, I have not found her. And also the men of the place said, There has been no prostitute here.
23 And Judah said, Let her keep it, lest we be put to shame. Behold, I sent this kid, and you have not found her.
24 Now, about three months after, it was told Judah, saying, Tamar, your daughter-in-law has prostituted herself, and in addition, she is now pregnant by prostitution.
And Judah said, Bring her out, and let her be burned.
25 When she was brought out, she sent to her father-in-law, saying, By the man whose these are I am pregnant.
And she said, Discern, please, whose these are: the signet, and the cords, and the staff.
26 And Judah acknowledged them, and said, She is more righteous than I, seeing as I did not give her Shelah my son. And he never knew her again.
27 Now, when the time came for her to give birth, behold, there were twins in her womb. 28 And then, when she was giving birth, one put out its hand, and the midwife took and tied onto the hand a scarlet thread, saying, This one came out first. 29 But then he drew back his hand, and his brother came out first. And she said, How have you broken yourself out? Therefore his name was called Perez. 30 And afterward his brother came out, who had the scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zerah.
(38:15) "prostitute". In this case, the Hebrew word is zwnh, a word for a prostitute.
(38:21) "prostitute" (both times). In this case, the Hebrew word is qdšh, which appears to be derived from a Hebrew root connoting holiness. BDB renders it "temple-prostitute". While the word in verse 15, zwnh, unambiguously means "prostitute" as is attested many times in the Hebrew Bible, qdšh is not as well attested, and nowhere is it explicitly said that a qdšh was a prostitute. Westenholz (1989) argues that the available evidence does not permit us to conclude that the word referred to prostitution.
(38:22) "prostitute". As in verse 21, not as in verse 15.
(38:24) "prostituted ... prostitution". These are ordinary Hebrew terms for prostitution.
(38:29) "How have you broken yourself out?" Hebrew mh prṣt ʕlyk prṣ. The ASV gives two possible renderings. In the ASV text itself, it reads, "Wherefore hast thou made a breach for thyself?" But in the margin, the alternative is given: "How hast thou made a break! a breach be upon thee!"
(38:29) "Perez". The text is playing with the resemblance in Hebrew between the name "Perez" and the verb "to break out".
Although Genesis 38 is often treated as a later interruption to the Joseph story, nevertheless it might be worth quickly reviewing the chronological demands that Genesis places on it in its present position. We read in 37:2 that the incident between Joseph and his brothers occurs when Joseph is seventeen years old, and the wording of 38:1 places the beginning of the Genesis 38 narrative after the sale of Joseph. Genesis 41:46 has a thirty-year old Joseph entering the service of Pharaoh. This is followed by seven "years of plenty" and two years of famine, making Joseph 39 years old when his brothers and father move into Egypt.
As the events of Genesis 38 all occur with Judah living in Canaan, all the events described in it are required to fit into 22 years. Judah leaves his brothers, settles among Canaanites, marries a Canaanite woman, has three sons, and at least two of them grow to whatever we might suppose adulthood to be in this context. Judah's eldest son, Er, marries a woman named Tamar. Er dies. Tamar is given to Onan, and Onan also dies. Tamar then lives as a widow away from Judah. After "many days", Judah's wife dies, Judah finishes mourning, and Judah visits Timnath. Now, when Onan died, Shelah was not "grown up", but now he is. On the way to Timnah, Tamar becomes pregnant by Judah. She then gives birth to twins. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to try to figure whether it is plausible to fit all these events into a twenty-two year period.
ASV. The American Standard Version of the Bible, as printed in 1901 by Thomas Nelson and Sons.
Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; and Briggs, Charles A. (1907). A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Based on the Lexicon of William Gesenius, as Translated by Edward Robinson, Late Professor in the Union Theological Seminary, New York.
Westenholz, Joan Goodnick (1989). "Tamar, Qĕdēšā, Qadištu, and Sacred Prostitution in Mesopotamia". Harvard Theological Review, 82, pp 245-266 doi:10.1017/S0017816000016199
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