Laban also said to Jacob, “Look at this mound and the marker I have set up between you and me.

The God of Abraham, and the gods of Nahor—the gods of their father—will judge between us.” And Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac.

Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and invited his relatives to eat a meal. So they ate a meal and spent the night on the mountain.

Jacob went on his way, and God’s angels met him.

When he saw them, Jacob said, “This is God’s camp.” So he called that place Mahanaim.

Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.

He commanded them, “You are to say to my lord Esau, ‘This is what your servant Jacob says. I have been staying with Laban and have been delayed until now.

When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau; he is coming to meet you—and he has 400 men with him.”

Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; he divided the people with him into two camps, along with the flocks, cattle, and camels.

Jacob was thinking, "If Esau comes to one group and attacks it, then the remaining group may escape."

Then Jacob said, “God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, ‘Go back to your land and to your family, and I will cause you to prosper,’

So Jacob spent the night there. Then he selected a present for his brother Esau from the livestock he had acquired:

then tell him, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau. And look, he is behind us.’”

You are also to say, ‘Look, your servant Jacob is right behind us.’” For he thought, “I want to appease Esau with the gift that is going ahead of me. After that, I can face him, and perhaps he will forgive me.”

Jacob was thinking, "I'll pacify him with the presents that are being sent ahead of me. Then, when I meet him, perhaps he'll accept me." So the presents went ahead of him, while he spent that night in the camp.

During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female slaves, and his 11 sons, and crossed the ford of Jabbok.

Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

When the man saw that He could not defeat him, He struck Jacob’s hip socket as they wrestled and dislocated his hip.

Then He said to Jacob, “Let Me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me.”

“What is your name?” the man asked.

“Jacob,” he replied.

“Your name will no longer be Jacob,” He said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.”

Then Jacob asked Him, “Please tell me Your name.”

But He answered, “Why do you ask My name?” And He blessed him there.

Jacob then named the place Peniel, “For I have seen God face to face,” he said, “and I have been delivered.”

The sun was rising above Jacob as he crossed over from Peniel, limping due to his wounded thigh.

That is why, to this day, the Israelites don’t eat the thigh muscle that is at the hip socket: because He struck Jacob’s hip socket at the thigh muscle.

Now Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming toward him with 400 men. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two female slaves.

Then Jacob crossed over [the stream] ahead of them and bowed himself to the ground seven times [bowing and moving forward each time], until he approached his brother.

Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him. Then he fell on his neck and kissed him. And they wept.

Esau looked up and saw the women and the children, and said, “Who are these with you?” So Jacob replied, “They are the children whom God has graciously given your servant.”

Esau then asked, "What did you intend by sending all these herds to meet me?" Jacob replied, "To find favor in your sight, my lord."

But Jacob said, “No, please! If I have found favor with you, take this gift from my hand. For indeed, I have seen your face, and it is like seeing God’s face, since you have accepted me.

Please take my present that was brought to you, because God has been gracious to me and I have everything I need.” So Jacob urged him until he accepted.

Jacob replied, “My lord knows that the children are weak, and I have nursing sheep and cattle. If they are driven hard for one day, the whole herd will die.

Then Esau said, “Please let me leave with you some of the people who are with me.” But Jacob said, “What need is there [for it]? Let me find favor in the sight of my lord.”

"Why do that?" Jacob asked. "I've already found favor in your sight, sir." So Esau set out that very day back on his way to Seir,

but Jacob went on to Succoth. He built a house for himself and stalls for his livestock; that is why the place was called Succoth.

After Jacob came from Paddan-aram, he arrived safely at Shechem in the land of Canaan and camped in front of the city.

Dinah, Leah’s daughter whom she bore to Jacob, went out to see some of the young women of the area.

He became infatuated with Dinah, daughter of Jacob. He loved the young girl and spoke tenderly to her.

Jacob heard that Shechem had defiled his daughter Dinah, but since his sons were with his livestock in the field, he remained silent until they returned.

Meanwhile, Shechem’s father Hamor came to speak with Jacob.

Jacob’s sons returned from the field when they heard about the incident and were deeply grieved and angry. For Shechem had committed an outrage against Israel by raping Jacob’s daughter, and such a thing should not be done.

Hamor said to Jacob’s sons, “My son Shechem is strongly attracted to your daughter. Please give her to him as a wife.

But Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully because he had defiled their sister Dinah.

The young man did not delay doing this, because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter. Now he was the most important in all his father’s house.

On the third day, when they were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords, went into the unsuspecting city, and killed every male.

Jacob’s other sons came to the slaughter and plundered the city because their sister had been defiled.

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me, making me odious to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. We are few in number; if they unite against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.”

God said to Jacob, “Get up! Go to Bethel and settle there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.”

So Jacob said to his family and all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you. Purify yourselves and change your clothes.

Then they gave Jacob all their foreign gods and their earrings, and Jacob hid them under the oak near Shechem.

When they set out, a terror from God came over the cities around them, and they did not pursue Jacob’s sons.

So Jacob and all who were with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan.

Jacob built an altar there and called the place God of Bethel because it was there that God had revealed Himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

Deborah, the one who had nursed and raised Rebekah, died and was buried under the oak south of Bethel. So Jacob named it Oak of Weeping.

God appeared to Jacob again after he returned from Paddan-aram, and He blessed him.

God said to him:

Your name is Jacob;
you will no longer be named Jacob,
but your name will be Israel.

So He named him Israel.

Jacob set up a marker at the place where He had spoken to him—a stone marker. He poured a drink offering on it and anointed it with oil.

Jacob named the place where God had spoken with him Bethel.

Just before she died, Rachel called her son's name Ben-oni, but his father Jacob named him Benjamin.

Jacob set up a marker on her grave; it is the marker at Rachel’s grave to this day.

Jacob continued his travels, and eventually pitched his tent facing Migdal Eder.

While Israel was living in that region, Reuben went in and slept with his father’s concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard about it.

Jacob had 12 sons:

Leah’s sons were Reuben (Jacob’s firstborn),
Simeon, Levi, Judah,
Issachar, and Zebulun.

The sons of Leah’s slave Zilpah
were Gad and Asher.

These are the sons of Jacob, who were born to him in Paddan-aram.

Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre in Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed.

He took his last breath and died, and was gathered to his people, old and full of days. His sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Esau took his wives, sons, daughters, and all the people of his household, as well as his herds, all his livestock, and all the property he had acquired in Canaan; he went to a land away from his brother Jacob.

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

These are the family records of Jacob.

At 17 years of age, Joseph tended sheep with his brothers. The young man was working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought a bad report about them to their father.

Then Jacob said to him, “Please go and see whether everything is all right with your brothers and all right with the flock; then bring word [back] to me.” So he sent him from the Hebron Valley, and he went to Shechem.

As it was, when Joseph arrived where his brothers were, they stripped off the tunic that Jacob had given him that is, the richly-embroidered tunic that he was wearing.

Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth around his waist, and mourned for his son many days.

When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you keep looking at each other?

But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he thought, “Something might happen to him.”

When they reached their father Jacob in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them:

Their father Jacob said to them, “You have deprived me of my sons. Joseph is gone and Simeon is gone. Now you want to take Benjamin. Everything happens to me!”

But Jacob answered, “My son will not go down with you, for his brother is dead and he alone is left. If anything happens to him on your journey, you will bring my gray hairs down to Sheol in sorrow.”

And it happened that when the families of Jacob’s sons had finished eating [all of] the grain which they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go again, buy us a little food.”

So they went up from Egypt and came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan.

They said, “Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt!” Jacob was stunned, for he did not believe them.

But when they told Jacob all that Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to transport him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived.

That night God spoke to Israel in a vision: “Jacob, Jacob!” He said.

And Jacob replied, “Here I am.”

Jacob left Beer-sheba. The sons of Israel took their father Jacob in the wagons Pharaoh had sent to carry him, along with their children and their wives.

They also took their cattle and possessions they had acquired in the land of Canaan. Then Jacob and all his children went with him to Egypt.

These are the names of the Israelites, Jacob and his sons, who went to Egypt:

Jacob’s firstborn: Reuben.

These were Leah’s sons born to Jacob in Paddan-aram, as well as his daughter Dinah. The total number of persons: 33.

These were the sons of Zilpah—whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah—that she bore to Jacob: 16 persons.

The sons of Jacob’s wife Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.

These were Rachel’s sons who were born to Jacob: 14 persons.

These were the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Rachel. She bore to Jacob: seven persons.

The total number of persons belonging to Jacob—his direct descendants, not including the wives of Jacob’s sons—who came to Egypt: 66.

And Joseph’s sons who were born to him in Egypt: two persons.
All those of Jacob’s household who had come to Egypt: 70 persons.

Now Jacob had sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to prepare for his arrival at Goshen. When they came to the land of Goshen,

Joseph prepared his chariot and went to meet his father Israel in Goshen. As soon as Jacob appeared in his presence, he embraced him and wept for a long time as he held on to him.

And Jacob and his sons came to Joseph in Egypt, and when word of it came to the ears of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, he said to Joseph, Your father and brothers have come to you; all the land of Egypt is before you; let your father and your brothers have the best of the land for their resting-place.

Joseph then brought his father Jacob and presented him before Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh.

Then Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How many years have you lived?”

Jacob said to Pharaoh, “My pilgrimage has lasted 130 years. My years have been few and hard, and they have not surpassed the years of my fathers during their pilgrimages.”

So Jacob blessed Pharaoh and departed from Pharaoh’s presence.