Jim Bob Duggar scolded his son Joseph Duggar — but offered the promise of religious salvation — in a jailhouse letter obtained by People.

Joseph Duggar, 31, was arrested last month on charges of molesting a 9-year-old girl in 2020 while vacationing in Panama Beach, Florida, with the child’s parents. He has pleaded not guilty.

“You have made some terrible decisions, but God has already forgiven you if you have asked him,” his father wrote in the letter, which the younger Duggar received in an Arkansas detention facility while awaiting extradition to Florida.

“You are just going to have to accept the situation at this point and it’s also fine to pray that God would have mercy on you, but you’re probably gonna face a major consequences [sic] for several years to come,” Jim Bob Duggar wrote.

The Duggar patriarch traveled to Florida earlier this week to attend his son’s first court appearance on the charges.

Joseph Duggar was later released on a $600,000 bond, but was barred from having unsupervised contact with any person under 18, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The younger Duggar and his wife, Kendra, are also facing four counts each in Arkansas for endangering the welfare of a minor, second degree, in addition to four counts of false imprisonment, second degree.

Joseph Duggar is the second member of the Duggar family to face child sex abuse charges. His older brother, Josh Duggar, is currently serving a 12-year sentence for receiving and possessing child sexual abuse imagery. In 2015, it was reported that the Duggars had also told police in 2006 that their son Josh had confessed years earlier to molesting other children, including his sisters, but they waited months to alert authorities. The Duggar family starred in the reality series “19 Kids and Counting” from 2008–2015.

Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.

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