He didn't recognize Jacob, because his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau, so Isaac blessed him.

After this, Jacob's father Isaac told him, "Come closer and kiss me, my son."

So Jacob drew closer to kiss him. When Isaac smelled the scent of his son's clothes, he blessed him and said, "How my son's scent is the fragrance of the field that the LORD has blessed.

prepared some delicious food, brought it to his father, and told him, "Can you get up now, father, so you may eat some of your son's game and then bless me?"

But his father Isaac asked him, "Who are you?" "I'm Esau, your firstborn son," he answered.

At this, Isaac began to tremble violently. "Who then," he asked, "hunted some game and brought it to me to eat before you arrived, so that I've blessed him? Indeed, he is blessed."

At this, his father Isaac replied to him, "Look! Away from the fertile land will be your dwellings; away from the dew of the skies above.

So Esau harbored animosity toward Jacob because of the way his father had blessed him. Esau kept saying to himself, "The time to mourn for my father is very near. That's when I'm going to kill my brother Jacob."

Eventually, what Rebekah's older son Esau had been saying was reported to her, so she sent for her younger son Jacob and warned him, "Look! Your brother is planning to get even by killing you.

and stay there with him a few days until your brother's fury subsides.

After that happens and he has forgotten what you've done to him, I'll send for you so you can return from there. Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?"

Later, Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, instructing him, "Don't marry a wife from the local Canaanite women.

Esau noticed that after Isaac had blessed Jacob as he was sending him off to Paddan-aram to marry a wife from there, he had instructed Jacob, "Don't marry a Canaanite woman."

When Laban heard the news about his sister's son Jacob, he ran out to meet him. He embraced him, kissed him, and brought him back to his house. Then Jacob told Laban about everything that had happened.

Laban responded, "You certainly are my flesh and blood!" So Jacob stayed with him for about a month.

So Jacob completed another seven years' work, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife.

Leah conceived, bore a son, and named him Reuben, because she was saying, "The LORD had looked on my torture, so now my husband will love me."

Later, she conceived again, bore a son, and declared, "Because the LORD heard that I'm neglected, he gave me this one, too." So she named him Simeon.

Later, she conceived again and said, "This time my husband will become attached to me, now that I've borne him three sons." So he named him Levi.

Then she conceived yet again, bore a son, and said, "This time I'll praise the LORD." So she named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing children.

Then Rachel said, "God has vindicated me! He has heard my voice and has given me a son." Therefore, she named him Dan.

so Rachel said, "I've been through a mighty struggle with my sister and won." She named him Naphtali.

and Leah exclaimed, "How fortunate!" So she named him Gad.

She said, "How happy I am, because women will call me happy!" So she named him Asher.

When Jacob came in from the field that evening, Leah went to meet him and told him, "You're having sex with me tonight. I traded my son's mandrakes for you!" So he slept with her that night.

Then Leah said, "God has paid me for giving my servant to my husband as his wife." So she named him Issachar.

Then Leah said, "God has given me a good gift. This time my husband will exalt me, because I've borne him six sons." So she named him Zebulun.

Because she had been asking, "May God give me another son," she named him Joseph.

Jacob also noticed that the way Laban had been looking at him wasn't as nice as it had been just two days earlier.

Even so, your father has cheated me. He broke our wage agreement ten times. However, God didn't allow him to harm me.

Then Rachel and Leah asked him, "Do we have anything left of inheritance remaining in our father's house?

and drove all his livestock ahead of him, with everything that belonged to him, including the livestock that he had bought and accumulated in Paddan-aram, intending to deliver them to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan.

Moreover, Jacob had deceived Laban the Aramean, because he had never told him that he was intending to leave.

so he took his relatives with him and pursued Jacob. Laban was on the road for seven days when he finally caught up with Jacob in the hill country of Gilead.

That night, God appeared to Laban the Aramean in a dream and warned him, "Be careful what you say to Jacob, whether it's one word good or bad."

Meanwhile, Jacob had pitched his tent on the mountain, where Laban had caught up with him. Laban and his relatives encamped on that same mountain in the hill country of Gilead, too.

As Jacob went on his way, angels from God met him.

Then Jacob sent messengers ahead of him into the land of Seir (that is, into the territory of Edom) to meet his brother Esau.

Later, the messengers returned to Jacob and reported, "We went to your brother Esau. He's now coming to meet you and he has 400 men with him!"

Feeling mounting terror and distress, Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, doing the same with the flocks, the cattle, and the camels.

Deliver me from my brother Esau's control, because I'm terrified of him, and I'm afraid that he's coming to attack me, the mothers, and their children.

Jacob spent the night there. Out of everything that he had brought with him, he chose a gift for his brother Esau

He issued similar instructions to the second and third group, as well as to all the others who drove the herds that followed: "This is how you are to speak to Esau when you find him.

You are to tell him, "Look! Your servant Jacob is coming along behind us.'"

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.

When the man realized that he hadn't yet won the struggle, he injured the socket of Jacob's thigh, dislocating it as he wrestled with him,

Then the man asked him, "What's your name?" "Jacob," he responded

When Jacob looked off in the distance, there was Esau coming toward him, accompanied by 400 men! So Jacob divided Leah's children, Rachel, and the children of the two servants into separate groups.

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

"Please," Jacob implored him, "don't refuse. If I'm to receive favor from you, then receive this gift from me, because seeing your face is like seeing the face of God, since you have favorably accepted me.

So receive my blessing, which has been sent to you, since God has been gracious to me. Besides, I have enough." Because Jacob kept pressing him, Esau accepted the gifts.

But Hamor said this: "My son is deeply attracted to your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife.

Jacob announced to his household and to everyone with him, "Throw away the foreign gods that you've kept among you, purify yourselves, and change your clothes.

Eventually, Jacob and everyone with him arrived at Luz (also called Beth-el) in the territory of Canaan.

God appeared again to Jacob after he had arrived from Paddan-aram and blessed him.

Then God told him, "Your name is Jacob. No longer are you to be called Jacob. Instead, your name will be Israel."

So God called his name Israel and also told him, "I am God Almighty. You are to be fruitful and multiply. You will become a nation in fact, an assembly of nations! Kings will come from you they'll emerge from your own loins!

After this, God ascended from the place where he had been speaking to him.

Jacob erected a pillar of stone at that very place where God had spoken to him. He poured a drink offering over it, anointed it with oil,

and named the place where God had spoken to him Beth-el.

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

Leah's servant Zilpah's sons were Gad and Asher. These were Jacob's sons who were born to him while he lived in Paddan-aram.

when he died and joined his ancestors at a ripe old age. Then his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Oholibamah bore Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. These were Esau's sons, who were born to him in the territory of Canaan.

When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was helping his brothers tend their flocks. He was a young man at that time, as were the children of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. But Joseph would come back and tell his father that his brothers were doing bad things. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his brothers, since he was born to him in his old age, so he had made a richly-embroidered tunic for him.

When Joseph's brothers realized that their father loved him more than all of his brothers, they hated him so much that they were unable to speak politely to him.

Right about this time, Joseph had a dream and then told it to his brothers. As a result, his brothers hated him all the more!

At this, his brothers replied, "Do you really think you're going to rule us or lord it over us?" So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his interpretations of them.

When Joseph told his father about this, his father rebuked him and asked him, "What kind of dream is that? Will I, your mother, and your brothers really come to you and bow down to the ground in front of you?"

As a result, his brothers became more envious of him. But his father kept thinking about all of this.

"Go and see how things are with your brothers," Israel ordered him. "And see how things are with the flock. Bring back a report for me." Then he sent Joseph from the valley of Hebron.

When Joseph reached Shechem, a man found him wandering around in a field. So the man asked him, "What are you looking for?"

Now as soon as they saw him approaching from a distance, before he arrived they plotted together to kill him.

Come on! Let's kill him and toss him into one of the cisterns. Then we'll report that some wild animal devoured him and wait to see what becomes of his dreams!"

Reuben told them. "And no blood shedding, either. Instead, let's toss him into this cistern that's way out here in the wilderness. But don't lay a hand on him." (Reuben intended to free Joseph and return him to his father.)

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.

They grabbed him and tossed him into the cistern, but the cistern was empty. (There was no water in it.)

Come on! Let's sell him to the Ishmaelites! That way, we won't have laid our hands on him. After all, he's our brother, our own flesh."

So Judah's brothers listened to him. As the Midianite merchants were passing through, they extracted Joseph from the cistern and sold Joseph for 20 pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, who then took Joseph down to Egypt.

All his sons and daughters showed up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He kept saying, "Leave me alone! I'll go down to the next world, still mourning for my son." So Joseph's father wept for him.

and she conceived, bore a son, and named him Er.

Later, she conceived again, bore another son, and named him Onan.

Then she bore yet another son and named him Shelah. Judah was living in Kezib when she bore him.

But the LORD considered Er, Judah's oldest son, to be wicked so he put him to death.

The LORD considered what Onan was doing to be evil, so he put him to death, too.

So she took off her mourning apparel, covered herself with a shawl, and concealed her outward appearance. Then she went out and sat at the entrance of Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah, because she knew that even though Shelah had grown up, she wasn't being given to him as his wife.

"I'll send you a young goat from the flock," he responded. But she pressed him, asking, "What security will you put up until you've sent it?"

"Your signet ring, cord, and the staff in your hand," she suggested. So he gave them to her, had sex with her, and she became pregnant by him. Then she got up and left. Later, she took off her shawl and put on her mourning clothes.

Afterwards, his brother came out, and around his hand was the scarlet. So they named him Zerah.

Meanwhile, Joseph had been delivered to Egypt and turned over to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's court officials and the Commander-in-Chief of the imperial guards. An Egyptian, he bought Joseph from the Ishmaelites, who had brought him down there.

That's how Joseph pleased Potiphar as he served him. Eventually, Potiphar appointed Joseph as overseer of his entire household. Moreover, he entrusted everything that he owned into his care.

Now Joseph was well built and good looking. That's why, sometime later, Joseph's master's wife looked straight at Joseph and propositioned him: "Come on! Let's have a little sex!"

She kept on talking to him like this day after day, but he wouldn't listen to her. Not only would he refuse to have sex with her, he refused even to stay around her.

and then this is what she told him: "That Hebrew slave whom you brought to us came in here to rape me.

arrested Joseph, and locked him up in the same prison where the king's prisoners were confined. So Joseph remained there in prison.

But the LORD was with Joseph. He extended gracious love to him, causing the prison warden to be pleased with Joseph.

The prison warden did not have to worry about anything under Joseph's care, because the LORD was with him. That's why Joseph prospered in everything he did.

So he asked Pharaoh's officers, who were with him in prison in his master's house, "Why are you so sad today?"

Then Joseph told him, "This is what your dream means: The three branches are three days.

Despite all of this, the senior security advisor not only didn't remember Joseph, he deliberately forgot him.