Now the young woman was very beautiful. She was a virgin; no man had ever had sexual relations with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jug, and came back up.

When she had done so, she said, "I'll draw water for your camels too, until they have drunk as much as they want."

She quickly emptied her jug into the watering trough and ran back to the well to draw more water until she had drawn enough for all his camels.

Silently the man watched her with interest to determine if the Lord had made his journey successful or not.

After the camels had finished drinking, the man took out a gold nose ring weighing a beka and two gold bracelets weighing ten shekels and gave them to her.

(Now Rebekah had a brother named Laban.) Laban rushed out to meet the man at the spring.

Then I bowed down and worshiped the Lord. I praised the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me on the right path to find the granddaughter of my master's brother for his son.

The servant told Isaac everything that had happened.

Abraham had taken another wife, named Keturah.

Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man who had lived a full life. He joined his ancestors.

This was the field Abraham had purchased from the sons of Heth. There Abraham was buried with his wife Sarah.

Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for fresh game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

After Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines happened to look out a window and observed Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

Then Abimelech exclaimed, "What in the world have you done to us? One of the men might easily have had sexual relations with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us!"

When Isaac planted in that land, he reaped in the same year a hundred times what he had sown, because the Lord blessed him.

He had so many sheep and cattle and such a great household of servants that the Philistines became jealous of him.

So the Philistines took dirt and filled up all the wells that his father's servants had dug back in the days of his father Abraham.

Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug back in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after Abraham died. Isaac gave these wells the same names his father had given them.

Now Abimelech had come to him from Gerar along with Ahuzzah his friend and Phicol the commander of his army.

That day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well they had dug. "We've found water," they reported.

Now Rebekah had been listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau went out to the open fields to hunt down some wild game and bring it back,

Then Rebekah took her older son Esau's best clothes, which she had with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob.

Then she handed the tasty food and the bread she had made to her son Jacob.

Isaac had just finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had scarcely left his father's presence, when his brother Esau returned from the hunt.

So Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing his father had given to his brother. Esau said privately, "The time of mourning for my father is near; then I will kill my brother Jacob!"

When Rebekah heard what her older son Esau had said, she quickly summoned her younger son Jacob and told him, "Look, your brother Esau is planning to get revenge by killing you.

Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him off to Paddan Aram to find a wife there. As he blessed him, Isaac commanded him, "You must not marry a Canaanite woman."

So Esau went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Abraham's son Ishmael, along with the wives he already had.

He reached a certain place where he decided to camp because the sun had gone down. He took one of the stones and placed it near his head. Then he fell asleep in that place

and had a dream. He saw a stairway erected on the earth with its top reaching to the heavens. The angels of God were going up and coming down it

Early in the morning Jacob took the stone he had placed near his head and set it up as a sacred stone. Then he poured oil on top of it.

(Now Laban had two daughters; the older one was named Leah, and the younger one Rachel.

Leah's eyes were tender, but Rachel had a lovely figure and beautiful appearance.)

Since Jacob had fallen in love with Rachel, he said, "I'll serve you seven years in exchange for your younger daughter Rachel."

In the evening he brought his daughter Leah to Jacob, and Jacob had marital relations with her.

Jacob had marital relations with Rachel as well. He loved Rachel more than Leah, so he worked for Laban for seven more years.

She became pregnant again and had another son. She said, "Because the Lord heard that I was unloved, he gave me this one too." So she named him Simeon.

She became pregnant again and had another son. She said, "Now this time my husband will show me affection, because I have given birth to three sons for him." That is why he was named Levi.

She became pregnant again and had another son. She said, "This time I will praise the Lord." That is why she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children.

So Rachel gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob had marital relations with her.

When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she gave her servant Zilpah to Jacob as a wife.

When Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, "You must sleep with me because I have paid for your services with my son's mandrakes." So he had marital relations with her that night.

After Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, "Send me on my way so that I can go home to my own country.

Indeed, you had little before I arrived, but now your possessions have increased many times over. The Lord has blessed you wherever I worked. But now, how long must it be before I do something for my own family too?"

So that day Laban removed the male goats that were streaked or spotted, all the female goats that were speckled or spotted (all that had any white on them), and all the dark-colored lambs, and put them in the care of his sons.

When Jacob saw the look on Laban's face, he could tell his attitude toward him had changed.

He took away all the livestock he had acquired in Paddan Aram and all his moveable property that he had accumulated. Then he set out toward the land of Canaan to return to his father Isaac.

While Laban had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole the household idols that belonged to her father.

Three days later Laban discovered Jacob had left.

Whoever has taken your gods will be put to death! In the presence of our relatives identify whatever is yours and take it." (Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.)

(Now Rachel had taken the idols and put them inside her camel's saddle and sat on them.) Laban searched the whole tent, but did not find them.

If the God of my father -- the God of Abraham, the one whom Isaac fears -- had not been with me, you would certainly have sent me away empty-handed! But God saw how I was oppressed and how hard I worked, and he rebuked you last night."

Then he purchased the portion of the field where he had pitched his tent; he bought it from the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, for a hundred pieces of money.

When Jacob heard that Shechem had violated his daughter Dinah, his sons were with the livestock in the field. So Jacob remained silent until they came in.

Now Jacob's sons had come in from the field when they heard the news. They were offended and very angry because Shechem had disgraced Israel by sexually assaulting Jacob's daughter, a crime that should not be committed.

Jacob's sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully when they spoke because Shechem had violated their sister Dinah.

Jacob's sons killed them and looted the city because their sister had been violated.

He built an altar there and named the place El Bethel because there God had revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

While Israel was living in that land, Reuben had sexual relations with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel heard about it. Jacob had twelve sons:

So Jacob came back to his father Isaac in Mamre, to Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed.

Then Isaac breathed his last and joined his ancestors. He died an old man who had lived a full life. His sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, all the people in his household, his livestock, his animals, and all his possessions which he had acquired in the land of Canaan and went to a land some distance away from Jacob his brother

because they had too many possessions to be able to stay together and the land where they had settled was not able to support them because of their livestock.

But Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, in the land of Canaan.

Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him even more.

He said to them, "Listen to this dream I had:

Then he had another dream, and told it to his brothers. "Look," he said. "I had another dream. The sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me."

When he told his father and his brothers, his father rebuked him, saying, "What is this dream that you had? Will I, your mother, and your brothers really come and bow down to you?"

When his brothers had gone to graze their father's flocks near Shechem,

There Judah saw the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. Judah acquired her as a wife and had marital relations with her.

She became pregnant and had a son. Judah named him Er.

She became pregnant again and had another son, whom she named Onan.

Then she had yet another son, whom she named Shelah. She gave birth to him in Kezib.

But Onan knew that the child would not be considered his. So whenever he had sexual relations with his brother's wife, he withdrew prematurely so as not to give his brother a descendant.

So she removed her widow's clothes and covered herself with a veil. She wrapped herself and sat at the entrance to Enaim which is on the way to Timnah. (She did this because she saw that she had not been given to Shelah as a wife, even though he had now grown up.)

When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute because she had covered her face.

He said, "What pledge should I give you?" She replied, "Your seal, your cord, and the staff that's in your hand." So he gave them to her and had sex with her. She became pregnant by him.

Then Judah had his friend Hirah the Adullamite take a young goat to get back from the woman the items he had given in pledge, but Hirah could not find her.

Afterward his brother came out -- the one who had the scarlet thread on his hand -- and he was named Zerah.

Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt. An Egyptian named Potiphar, an official of Pharaoh and the captain of the guard, purchased him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there.

From the time Potiphar appointed him over his household and over all that he owned, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's household for Joseph's sake. The blessing of the Lord was on everything that he had, both in his house and in his fields.

So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; he gave no thought to anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well built and good-looking.

When she saw that he had left his outer garment in her hand and had run outside,

Both of them, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison, had a dream the same night. Each man's dream had its own meaning.

They told him, "We both had dreams, but there is no one to interpret them." Joseph responded, "Don't interpretations belong to God? Tell them to me."

but the chief baker he impaled, just as Joseph had predicted.

At the end of two full years Pharaoh had a dream. As he was standing by the Nile,

Then he fell asleep again and had a second dream: There were seven heads of grain growing on one stalk, healthy and good.

We each had a dream one night; each of us had a dream with its own meaning.

It happened just as he had said to us -- Pharaoh restored me to my office, but he impaled the baker."

Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I had a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it. But I have heard about you, that you can interpret dreams."

Then seven other cows came up after them; they were scrawny, very bad-looking, and lean. I had never seen such bad-looking cows as these in all the land of Egypt!

When they had eaten them, no one would have known that they had done so, for they were just as bad-looking as before. Then I woke up.

Pharaoh had him ride in the chariot used by his second-in-command, and they cried out before him, "Kneel down!" So he placed him over all the land of Egypt.

Then the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had predicted. There was famine in all the other lands, but throughout the land of Egypt there was food.

Then Joseph remembered the dreams he had dreamed about them, and he said to them, "You are spies; you have come to see if our land is vulnerable!"

He turned away from them and wept. When he turned around and spoke to them again, he had Simeon taken from them and tied up before their eyes.

They returned to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan and told him all the things that had happened to them, saying,

When they finished eating the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, "Return, buy us a little more food."

Israel said, "Why did you bring this trouble on me by telling the man you had one more brother?"