After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel with his hand. So he was named Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when they were born.

When the boys grew up, Esau became an expert hunter, an outdoorsman, but Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home.

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

Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field exhausted.

He said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff, because I’m exhausted.” That is why he was also named Edom.

Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.”

Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore to Jacob and sold his birthright to him.

Then Jacob gave bread and lentil stew to Esau; he ate, drank, got up, and went away. So Esau despised his birthright.

Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Listen! I heard your father talking with your brother Esau. He said,

Jacob answered Rebekah his mother, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, but I am a man with smooth skin.

Then Rebekah took the best clothes of her older son Esau, which were in the house, and had her younger son Jacob wear them.

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

Jacob replied to his father, “I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game so that you may bless me.”

Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come closer so I can touch you, my son. Are you really my son Esau or not?”

So Jacob came closer to his father Isaac. When he touched him, he said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”

Then he said, “Serve me, and let me eat some of my son’s game so that I can bless you.” Jacob brought it to him, and he ate; he brought him wine, and he drank.

As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob and Jacob had left the presence of his father Isaac, his brother Esau arrived from the hunt.

So he said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me twice now. He took my birthright, and look, now he has taken my blessing.” Then he asked, “Haven’t you saved a blessing for me?”

Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. And Esau determined in his heart: “The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”

When the words of her older son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she summoned her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Listen, your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you.

So Rebekah said to Isaac, “I’m sick of my life because of these Hittite women. If Jacob marries a Hittite woman like one of them, what good is my life?”

Isaac summoned Jacob, blessed him, and commanded him: “Don’t take a wife from the Canaanite women.

So Isaac sent Jacob to Paddan-aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

Esau noticed that Isaac blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan-aram to get a wife there. When he blessed him, Isaac commanded Jacob, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman.”

And Jacob listened to his father and mother and went to Paddan-aram.

Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran.

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

Early in the morning Jacob took the stone that was near his head and set it up as a marker. He poured oil on top of it

Then Jacob made a vow: “If God will be with me and watch over me on this journey, if He provides me with food to eat and clothing to wear,

Jacob resumed his journey and went to the eastern country.

Jacob asked the men at the well, “My brothers! Where are you from?”

“We’re from Haran,” they answered.

“Do you know Laban grandson of Nahor?” Jacob asked them.

They answered, “We know him.”

“Is he well?” Jacob asked.

“Yes,” they said, “and here is his daughter Rachel, coming with his sheep.”

Then Jacob said, “Look, it is still broad daylight. It’s not time for the animals to be gathered. Water the flock, then go out and let them graze.”

As soon as Jacob saw his uncle Laban’s daughter Rachel with his sheep, he went up and rolled the stone from the opening and watered his uncle Laban’s sheep.

Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept loudly.

When Laban heard the news about his sister’s son Jacob, he ran to meet him, hugged him, and kissed him. Then he took him to his house, and Jacob told him all that had happened.

Laban said to him, “Yes, you are my own flesh and blood.”

After Jacob had stayed with him a month,

Jacob loved Rachel, so he answered Laban, “I’ll work for you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”

So Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, and they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.

Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my time is completed. I want to sleep with her.”

That evening, Laban took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and he slept with her.

And Jacob did just that. He finished the week of celebration, and Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife.

Jacob slept with Rachel also, and indeed, he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.

When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she envied her sister. “Give me sons, or I will die!” she said to Jacob.

Jacob became angry with Rachel and said, “Am I in God’s place, who has withheld children from you?”

So Rachel gave her slave Bilhah to Jacob as a wife, and he slept with her.

Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son.

Rachel’s slave Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.

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

Leah’s slave Zilpah bore Jacob a son.

When Leah’s slave Zilpah bore Jacob a second son,

When Jacob came in from the field that evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, “You must come with me, for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So Jacob slept with her that night.

God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.

Then Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son.

After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me on my way so that I can return to my homeland.

So Jacob said to him, “You know what I have done for you and your herds.

Laban asked, “What should I give you?”

And Jacob said, “You don’t need to give me anything. If you do this one thing for me, I will continue to shepherd and keep your flock.

He put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob. Jacob, meanwhile, was shepherding the rest of Laban’s flock.

Jacob then took branches of fresh poplar, almond, and plane wood, and peeled the bark, exposing white stripes on the branches.

Jacob separated the lambs and made the flocks face the streaked and the completely dark sheep in Laban’s flocks. Then he set his own stock apart and didn’t put them with Laban’s sheep.

Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob placed the branches in the troughs, in full view of the flocks, and they would breed in front of the branches.

As for the weaklings of the flocks, he did not put out the branches. So it turned out that the weak sheep belonged to Laban and the stronger ones to Jacob.

Now Jacob heard what Laban’s sons were saying: “Jacob has taken all that was our father’s and has built this wealth from what belonged to our father.”

And Jacob saw from Laban’s face that his attitude toward him was not the same.

Jacob had Rachel and Leah called to the field where his flocks were.

In that dream the Angel of God said to me, ‘Jacob!’ and I said, ‘Here I am.’

Then Jacob got up and put his children and wives on the camels.

And Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean, not telling him that he was fleeing.

On the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled.

So he took his relatives with him, pursued Jacob for seven days, and overtook him at Mount Gilead.

But God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream at night. “Watch yourself!” God warned him. “Don’t say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.”

When Laban overtook Jacob, Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban and his brothers also pitched their tents in the hill country of Gilead.

Then Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done? You have deceived me and taken my daughters away like prisoners of war!

I could do you great harm, but last night the God of your father said to me: ‘Watch yourself. Don’t say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.’

Jacob answered, “I was afraid, for I thought you would take your daughters from me by force.

If you find your gods with anyone here, he will not live! Before our relatives, point out anything that is yours and take it.” Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the idols.

So Laban went into Jacob’s tent, then Leah’s tent, and then the tents of the two female slaves, but he found nothing. Then he left Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s.

Then Jacob became incensed and brought charges against Laban. “What is my crime?” he said to Laban. “What is my sin, that you have pursued me?

Then Laban answered Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters; the sons, my sons; and the flocks, my flocks! Everything you see is mine! But what can I do today for these daughters of mine or for the children they have borne?

So Jacob picked out a stone and set it up as a marker.

Then Jacob said to his relatives, “Gather stones.” And they took stones and made a mound, then ate there by the mound.

Laban named the mound Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob named it Galeed.

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.

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,’

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.”

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.