Now since Ephron the Hittite had taken a seat there among the Hittites, he responded publicly to Abraham where the Hittites and everyone who was entering the gate of his city could hear him:

Abraham agreed with Ephron, so he weighed out to Ephron the money to which he had agreed publicly while the Hittites were listening: 400 shekels of silver at the current merchant rate.

Now Abraham had grown old, was well advanced in age, and the LORD had blessed Abraham in every way.

As evening approached, he had the camels kneel outside the town at the water well, right about the time when women customarily went out to draw water.

Before he had finished speaking, Rebekah appeared. She was a daughter of Milcah's son Bethuel. (Milcah was the wife of Abraham's brother Nahor.) She approached the well, carrying a jug on her shoulder.

The woman was very beautiful, young, and had not had sexual relations with a man. Going down to the spring, she filled her jug and turned for home.

When she had finished giving him a drink, she also said, "I'll also draw water for your camels until they've had enough to drink."

She quickly emptied her jug into the trough and ran to the well to draw again until she had drawn enough water for all ten of the servant's camels.

The man stared at her in silence, waiting to see whether or not the LORD had made his journey successful.

When the camels had finished drinking, the man took out a gold nose ring weighing a half shekel and two bracelets for her wrists, weighing 10 shekels and presented them to her.

The young woman then ran ahead and informed her mother's household what had happened.

Now Rebekah had a brother named Laban, who ran out to the man and met him at the spring.

And so it was, as soon as he saw the nose ring and bracelets on his sister's wrists, and as soon as he heard what his sister Rebekah was saying about what the man had spoken to her, he went out to the man who was still standing by the camels at the spring!

But when they had prepared a meal and set it in front of him, he said, "I'm not eating until I've spoken." "Speak up!" Laban exclaimed.

"Before I had finished praying, along came Rebekah with her jug on her shoulder! She went to the spring and drew some water. I asked her to please let me have a drink.

When Abraham's servant heard what they had said, he bowed down to the ground before the LORD.

Later on, as Isaac was returning one evening from Beer-lahai-roi (he had been living in the Negev),

"That's my master," the servant told her. So she reached for a veil and covered herself. Then the servant informed Isaac about everything he had done.

Later, Isaac brought Rebekah into the tent that had belonged to his mother Sarah and married her. Isaac loved her, and that's how he was comforted following the loss of his mother.

Abraham had taken another wife whose name was Keturah.

This was the same field that Abraham had bought from the Hittites, where Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried.

Later on, a famine swept through the land. This famine was different from the previous famine that had occurred earlier, during Abraham's lifetime. So Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar.

After he had been there awhile, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out through a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

So Abimelech called Isaac and confronted him. "She is definitely your wife!" he accused him, "So why did you claim, "She's my sister?'" Isaac responded, "Because I had thought ""otherwise, I'll die on account of her.'"

"What have you done to us?" Abimelech asked. "Any minute now, one of the people could have had sex with your wife and you would have caused all of us to be guilty."

They filled in with sand all of the wells that Isaac's father Abraham's servants had dug during his lifetime.

Isaac re-excavated some wells that his father had first dug during his lifetime, because the Philistines had filled them with sand after Abraham's death. Isaac renamed those wells with the same names that his father had called them.

But the herdsmen who lived in Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen. "The water is ours," they said. As a result, Isaac named the well Esek, for they had fiercely disputed with him about it.

That very same day, Isaac's servants arrived and reported to him about a well that they had just completed digging. "We've found water!" they said.

Now Rebekah overheard Isaac while he was speaking to his son Esau. When Esau had gone out to the field to hunt and bring in some game,

Then she handed the delicious food and bread that she had prepared to her son Jacob,

Just after Isaac had finished blessing Jacob and Jacob had left his father Isaac, Jacob's brother Esau returned from hunting,

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.

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."

After Jacob had obeyed his father and mother's instructions to set out for Paddan-aram,

Meanwhile, Jacob had left Beer-sheba and was on his way to Haran.

when he had a dream! He saw a raised highway that had been built with its ending point on earth and its beginning point in heaven. God's angels were ascending and descending on it.

When Jacob got up early the next morning, he took the stone that he had used for his pillow, set it up as a pillar, drenched it with oil,

and named the place Beth-el, although previously the city had been named Luz.

As he was observing a well that had been dug out on the open range, all of a sudden he noticed three flocks of sheep lying there, because shepherds watered their flocks from that well. There was a very large stone that covered the opening of the well,

and when all the flocks had been gathered there, they would roll away the stone from the opening of the well, water their flocks, and then return the stone to its place covering the opening of the well.

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.

That night Laban took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob. He had marital relations with her.

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."

So Rachel gave Jacob her woman servant Bilhah to be his wife, and Jacob had sex with her.

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

God heard what Leah had said, so she conceived and bore a fifth son for Jacob.

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

After Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob told Laban, "Send me off so that I can go back to my place and country.

What you had previously was only a few head, but the herd has now multiplied, because the LORD has blessed you through my efforts. But now, when am I going to be able to provide for my own household?"

That very day, Laban removed the male goats that were striped or spotted, all the female goats that were speckled or spotted that is, every one that had white on them and all the black lambs and placed them into the care of his sons.

Then he placed the branches that he had stripped bare in all the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink. He placed the branches in front of the flock, and they went into heat as they came to drink.

Therefore the man Jacob prospered so much that he had large flocks, female and male servants, as well as camels and donkeys.

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

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.

Meanwhile, Laban had been out shearing his sheep. While he was away, Rachel stole her father's personal idols.

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

Three days later, somebody reported to Laban that Jacob had left,

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.

Now as to your gods, if you find someone has them in their possession, he's a dead man. Take our relatives as witnesses, search through our belongings, and take whatever belongs to you that's in my possession." But Jacob didn't know that Rachel had stolen the idols.

Meanwhile, Rachel had taken the idols, placed them inside the saddle of her camel, and sat on them. Laban searched through the whole tent, but found nothing.

Meanwhile, these past 20 years that I've been with you, your sheep and goats never had miscarriages, I never once ate any of the rams from your flock,

If the God of my father the God of Abraham, the God whom Isaac feared had not been with me, you would have sent me away empty handed. But God saw my misery and how hard I've worked with my own hands and he rebuked you last night."

Then Jacob told his relatives, "Go gather some stones." So they picked up stones and stacked them one on top of the other. Then they had a meal together there by the stack of stones.

I'm unworthy of all your gracious love, your faithfulness, and everything that you've done for your servant. When I first crossed over this river, I had only my staff. But now I've become two groups.

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

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,

Therefore, to this day the Israelis do not eat the hip tendon that connects to the thigh socket, because he had injured the socket of the thigh where the tendon connected to Jacob's hip.

After Jacob had arrived safely from Paddan-aram, he entered the city of Shechem, which was located in the territory of Canaan, and encamped facing that city.

Some time later, Dinah, Leah's daughter whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the land.

Because Jacob learned that Shechem had dishonored his daughter Dinah while his sons were still out with their cattle on the open range, he remained silent until they returned.

Just then Jacob's sons arrived from the field. When they heard what had happened, they were distraught with grief and livid with anger toward Shechem, because he had committed a disgraceful deed in Israel by forcing Jacob's daughter to have sex, an act that never should have happened.

But Jacob's sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceptively, because Shechem had dishonored their sister Dinah.

All of the males who heard Hamor and his son Shechem, who had gone out to the city gate, were circumcised.

Jacob's other sons came along afterward and plundered the city where their sister had been defiled,

seizing all of their flocks, herds, donkeys, and whatever else was in the city or had been left out in the field.

So they handed over to Jacob all their foreign gods on which they had been depending, along with the rings that they were wearing on their ears. Jacob buried them under the oak that grew near Shechem.

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

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

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.

But while Israel lived in that land, Reuben went inside his father's tent and had sexual relations with his father's concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard about it. Now Jacob had twelve sons.

So Jacob reached his father Isaac at Mamre, in Kiriath-arba (also known as Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had lived.

Isaac had lived a total of 180 years

Esau had married Canaanite women, including Elon the Hittite's daughter Adah, Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah (who was Zibeon the Hivite's daughter), and

Later, Esau took his wives, his children, everyone in his household, his livestock, all his animals, and all his possessions that he had acquired in the territory of Canaan and moved far away from his brother Jacob,

because their holdings were too vast to allow them to stay together, since the land where they had settled was not able to support all of their livestock.

Jacob continued to live in the land they were occupying, where his father had journeyed 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.

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!

"Let me tell you about this dream that I had!" he said.

But then he had another dream, and he proceeded to tell his brothers about that one, too. "I had another dream," he said. "The sun, moon, and eleven of the stars were bowing down before me!"

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.

There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He married her, had sexual relations with her,

But Onan knew that the offspring wouldn't be his own heir, so whenever he had sexual relations with his brother's wife, he would spill his semen on the ground to avoid fathering offspring for his brother.

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.

When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, since she had concealed her face.

"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.