“God has given me a good gift,” Leah said. “This time my husband will honor me because I have borne six sons for him,” and she named him Zebulun.

She conceived and bore a son, and said, “God has taken away my shame.”

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

But Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your sight, stay. I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you.”

Then Laban said, “Name your wages, and I will pay them.”

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.

“Good,” said Laban. “Let it be as you have said.”

Then the Lord said to him, “Go back to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you.”

He said to them, “I can see from your father’s face that his attitude toward me is not the same, but the God of my father has been with me.

If he said, ‘The spotted sheep will be your wages,’ then all the sheep were born spotted. If he said, ‘The streaked sheep will be your wages,’ then all the sheep were born streaked.

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

And He said, ‘Look up and see: all the males that are mating with the flocks are streaked, spotted, and speckled, for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you.

In fact, all the wealth that God has taken away from our father belongs to us and to our children. So do whatever God has said to you.”

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.’

She said to her father, “Sir, don’t be angry that I cannot stand up in your presence; I am having my period.” So Laban searched, but could not find the household idols.

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

Then Laban said, “This mound is a witness between you and me today.” Therefore the place was called Galeed

and also Mizpah, for he said, “May the Lord watch between you and me when we are out of each other’s sight.

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

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

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.”

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,’

You have said, ‘I will cause you to prosper, and I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’”

He entrusted them to his slaves as separate herds and said to them, “Go on ahead of me, and leave some distance between the herds.”

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.”

“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.”

So Esau said, “What do you mean by this whole procession I met?”

“To find favor with you, my lord,” he answered.

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.

Then Esau said, “Let’s move on, and I’ll go ahead of you.”

Esau said, “Let me leave some of my people with you.”

But he replied, “Why do that? Please indulge me, my lord.”

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

Then Shechem said to Dinah’s father and brothers, “Grant me this favor, and I’ll give you whatever you say.

“We cannot do this thing,” they said to them. “Giving our sister to an uncircumcised man is a disgrace to us.

“These men are peaceful toward us,” they said. “Let them live in our land and move about in it, for indeed, the region is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters as our wives and give our daughters to them.

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.

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.

During her difficult labor, the midwife said to her, “Don’t be afraid, for you have another son.”

He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had:

“Are you really going to reign over us?” his brothers asked him. “Are you really going to rule us?” So they hated him even more because of his dream and what he had said.

Then he had another dream and told it to his brothers. “Look,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun, moon, and 11 stars were bowing down to me.”

He told his father and brothers, but his father rebuked him. “What kind of dream is this that you have had?” he said. “Are your mother and brothers and I going to come and bow down to the ground before you?”

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.

Then Israel said to him, “Go and see how your brothers and the flocks are doing, and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the Valley of Hebron, and he went to Shechem.

“I’m looking for my brothers,” Joseph said. “Can you tell me where they are pasturing their flocks?”

“They’ve moved on from here,” the man said. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” So Joseph set out after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

They said to one another, “Here comes that dreamer!

When Reuben heard this, he tried to save him from them. He said, “Let’s not take his life.”

Reuben also said to them, “Don’t shed blood. Throw him into this pit in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him”—intending to rescue him from their hands and return him to his father.

Then Judah said to his brothers, “What do we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?

He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy is gone! What am I going to do?”

They sent the robe of many colors to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it. Is it your son’s robe or not?”

His father recognized it. “It is my son’s robe,” he said. “A vicious animal has devoured him. Joseph has been torn to pieces!”

All his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said. “I will go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” And his father wept for him.

Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife. Perform your duty as her brother-in-law and produce offspring for your brother.”

Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up.” For he thought, “He might die too, like his brothers.” So Tamar went to live in her father’s house.

He went over to her and said, “Come, let me sleep with you,” for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.

She said, “What will you give me for sleeping with me?”

“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.”

So the Adullamite returned to Judah, saying, “I couldn’t find her, and furthermore, the men of the place said, ‘There has been no cult prostitute here.’”

About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law, Tamar, has been acting like a prostitute, and now she is pregnant.”

“Bring her out!” Judah said. “Let her be burned to death!”

Judah recognized them and said, “She is more in the right than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not know her intimately again.

But then he pulled his hand back, and his brother came out. Then she said, “You have broken out first!” So he was named Perez.

After some time his master’s wife looked longingly at Joseph and said, “Sleep with me.”

But he refused. “Look,” he said to his master’s wife, “with me here my master does not concern himself with anything in his house, and he has put all that he owns under my authority.

She grabbed him by his garment and said, “Sleep with me!” But leaving his garment in her hand, he escaped and ran outside.

she called the household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “my husband brought a Hebrew man to make fools of us. He came to me so he could sleep with me, and I screamed as loud as I could.

“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.”

“This is its interpretation,” Joseph said to him. “The three branches are three days.

When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was positive, he said to Joseph, “I also had a dream. Three baskets of white bread were on my head.

Then the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh, “Today I remember my faults.

Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have had a dream, and no one can interpret it. But I have heard it said about you that you can hear a dream and interpret it.”

So Pharaoh said to Joseph: “In my dream I was standing on the bank of the Nile,

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

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.

Pharaoh also said to Joseph, “See, I am placing you over all the land of Egypt.”

Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I am Pharaoh, but no one will be able to raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt without your permission.”

and the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had said. There was famine in every country, but throughout the land of Egypt there was food.

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

Joseph remembered his dreams about them and said to them, “You are spies. You have come to see the weakness of the land.”

“No, my lord. Your servants have come to buy food,” they said.

“No,” he said to them. “You have come to see the weakness of the land.”

Then Joseph said to them, “I have spoken: ‘You are spies!’

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

Then they said to each other, “Obviously, we are being punished for what we did to our brother. We saw his deep distress when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen. That is why this trouble has come to us.”

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?”

The man who is the lord of the country said to us, ‘This is how I will know if you are honest: Leave one brother with me, take food to relieve the hunger of your households, and go.

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!”

Then Reuben said to his father, “You can kill my two sons if I don’t bring him back to you. Put him in my care, and I will return him to you.”

When they had used up the grain they had brought back from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go back and buy us some food.”

But Judah said to him, “The man specifically warned us: ‘You will not see me again unless your brother is with you.’

But if you will not send him, we will not go, for the man said to us, ‘You will not see me again unless your brother is with you.’”

Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me. We will be on our way so that we may live and not die—neither we, nor you, nor our children.

Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, then do this: Put some of the best products of the land in your packs and take them down to the man as a gift—some balsam and some honey, aromatic gum and resin, pistachios and almonds.