“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.”

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

When Esau looked up and saw the women and children, he asked, “Who are these with you?”

He answered, “The children God has graciously given your servant.”

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.

And he set up an altar there and called it “God, the God of Israel.”

“Get me this girl as a wife,” he told his father Hamor.

Their words seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem.

So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city and spoke to the men there.

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.

We must get up and go to Bethel. I will build an altar there to the God who answered me in my day of distress. He has been with me everywhere I have gone.”

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

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.

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.

God also said to him:

I am God Almighty.
Be fruitful and multiply.
A nation, indeed an assembly of nations,
will come from you,
and kings will descend from you.

Then God withdrew from him at the place where He had spoken to him.

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

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.

Israel said to Joseph, “Your brothers, you know, are pasturing the flocks at Shechem. Get ready. I’m sending you to them.”

“I’m ready,” Joseph replied.

So they took Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a young goat, and dipped the robe in its blood.

Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.

“I will send you a young goat from my flock,” he replied.

But she said, “Only if you leave something with me until you send it.”

“What should I give you?” he asked.

She answered, “Your signet ring, your cord, and the staff in your hand.” So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she got pregnant by him.

She got up and left, then removed her veil and put her widow’s clothes back on.

When Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get back the items he had left with the woman, he could not find her.

Judah replied, “Let her keep the items for herself; otherwise we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send this young goat, but you couldn’t find her.”

No one in this house is greater than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. So how could I do such a great evil and sin against God?”

“We had dreams,” they said to him, “but there is no one to interpret them.”

Then Joseph said to them, “Don’t interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”

But when all goes well for you, remember that I was with you. Please show kindness to me by mentioning me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this prison.

He fell asleep and dreamed a second time: Seven heads of grain, plump and ripe, came up on one stalk.

The thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven plump, ripe ones. Then Pharaoh woke up, and it was only a dream.

“I am not able to,” Joseph answered Pharaoh. “It is God who will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.”

In my dream I had also seen seven heads of grain, plump and ripe, coming up on one stalk.

Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “Pharaoh’s dreams mean the same thing. God has revealed to Pharaoh what He is about to do.

The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven ripe heads are seven years. The dreams mean the same thing.

“It is just as I told Pharaoh: God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do.

Since the dream was given twice to Pharaoh, it means that the matter has been determined by God, and He will carry it out soon.

Let them gather all the excess food during these good years that are coming. Under Pharaoh’s authority, store the grain in the cities, so they may preserve it as food.

Then Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find anyone like this, a man who has God’s spirit in him?”

So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has made all this known to you, there is no one as intelligent and wise as you are.

Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh, meaning, “God has made me forget all my hardship in my father’s house.”

And the second son he named Ephraim, meaning, “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

Send one from among you to get your brother. The rest of you will be imprisoned so that your words can be tested to see if they are true. If they are not, then as surely as Pharaoh lives, you are spies!”

On the third day Joseph said to them, “I fear God—do this and you will live.

At the place where they lodged for the night, one of them opened his sack to get feed for his donkey, and he saw his money there at the top of the bag.

He said to his brothers, “My money has been returned! It’s here in my bag.” Their hearts sank. Trembling, they turned to one another and said, “What is this that God has done to us?”

May God Almighty cause the man to be merciful to you so that he will release your other brother and Benjamin to you. As for me, if I am deprived of my sons, then I am deprived.”

Then the steward said, “May you be well. Don’t be afraid. Your God and the God of your father must have put treasure in your bags. I received your money.” Then he brought Simeon out to them.

The steward brought the men into Joseph’s house, gave them water to wash their feet, and got feed for their donkeys.

When he looked up and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother’s son, he asked, “Is this your youngest brother that you told me about?” Then he said, “May God be gracious to you, my son.”

Portions were served to them from Joseph’s table, and Benjamin’s portion was five times larger than any of theirs. They drank, and they got intoxicated with Joseph.

They had not gone very far from the city when Joseph said to his steward, “Get up. Pursue the men, and when you overtake them, say to them, ‘Why have you repaid evil for good?

“What can we say to my lord?” Judah replied. “How can we plead? How can we justify ourselves? God has exposed your servants’ iniquity. We are now my lord’s slaves—both we and the one in whose possession the cup was found.”

And now don’t be worried or angry with yourselves for selling me here, because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life.

God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance.

Therefore it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

“Return quickly to my father and say to him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: “God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me without delay.

Get your father and your families, and come back to me. I will give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you can eat from the richness of the land.’

Israel set out with all that he had and came to Beer-sheba, and he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.

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

And Jacob replied, “Here I am.”

God said, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there.

Gad’s sons: Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli.

Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me.

And Joseph said to his father, “They are my sons God has given me here.”

So Jacob said, “Bring them to me and I will bless them.”

Israel said to Joseph, “I never expected to see your face again, but now God has even let me see your offspring.”

Then he blessed Joseph and said:

The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,
the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day,

So he blessed them that day with these words:

The nation Israel will invoke blessings by you, saying,
“May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh,”
putting Ephraim before Manasseh.

Then Israel said to Joseph, “Look, I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you back to the land of your fathers.

Turbulent as water, you will no longer excel,
because you got into your father’s bed
and you defiled it—he got into my bed.

He saw that his resting place was good
and that the land was pleasant,
so he leaned his shoulder to bear a load
and became a forced laborer.

Gad will be attacked by raiders,
but he will attack their heels.

by the God of your father who helps you,
and by the Almighty who blesses you
with blessings of the heavens above,
blessings of the deep that lies below,
and blessings of the breasts and the womb.

‘Say this to Joseph: Please forgive your brothers’ transgression and their sin—the suffering they caused you.’ Therefore, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when their message came to him.

But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God?

You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people.

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will certainly come to your aid and bring you up from this land to the land He promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

So Joseph made the sons of Israel take an oath: “When God comes to your aid, you are to carry my bones up from here.”

Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher.

The Hebrew midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.

The midwives said to Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before a midwife can get to them.”

So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very numerous.

Since the midwives feared God, He gave them families.

But when she could no longer hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with asphalt and pitch. She placed the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.

Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe at the Nile while her servant girls walked along the riverbank. Seeing the basket among the reeds, she sent her slave girl to get it.

After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, and they cried out; and their cry for help ascended to God because of the difficult labor.

So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

God saw the Israelites, and He took notice.

Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses, Moses!”

“Here I am,” he answered.

Then He continued, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the territory of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

But Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

He answered, “I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain.”

Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them: The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what should I tell them?”

God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.”

God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.

“Go and assemble the elders of Israel and say to them: Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to me and said: I have paid close attention to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt.

They will listen to what you say. Then you, along with the elders of Israel, must go to the king of Egypt and say to him: Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us go on a three-day trip into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to Yahweh our God.