The words of Esau, her elder son, were told to Rebekah. She sent and called Jacob, her younger son, and said to him, "Behold, your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you.

Rebekah said to Isaac, "I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these, of the daughters of the land, what good will my life do me?"

Behold, Yahweh stood above it, and said, "I am Yahweh, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon you lie, to you will I give it, and to your seed.

Jacob awakened out of his sleep, and he said, "Surely Yahweh is in this place, and I didn't know it."

He was afraid, and said, "How dreadful is this place! This is none other than God's house, and this is the gate of heaven."

Jacob said to them, "My relatives, where are you from?" They said, "We are from Haran."

He said to them, "Do you know Laban, the son of Nahor?" They said, "We know him."

He said to them, "Is it well with him?" They said, "It is well. See, Rachel, his daughter, is coming with the sheep."

He said, "Behold, it is still the middle of the day, not time to gather the livestock together. Water the sheep, and go and feed them."

They said, "We can't, until all the flocks are gathered together, and they roll the stone from the well's mouth. Then we water the sheep."

Laban said to him, "Surely you are my bone and my flesh." He lived with him for a month.

Laban said to Jacob, "Because you are my brother, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what will your wages be?"

Jacob loved Rachel. He said, "I will serve you seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter."

Laban said, "It is better that I give her to you, than that I should give her to another man. Stay with me."

Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in to her."

It happened in the morning that, behold, it was Leah. He said to Laban, "What is this you have done to me? Didn't I serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?"

Laban said, "It is not done so in our place, to give the younger before the firstborn.

Leah conceived, and bore a son, and she named him Reuben. For she said, "Because Yahweh has looked at my affliction. For now my husband will love me."

She conceived again, and bore a son, and said, "Because Yahweh has heard that I am hated, he has therefore given me this son also." She named him Simeon.

She conceived again, and bore a son. Said, "Now this time will my husband be joined to me, because I have borne him three sons." Therefore was his name called Levi.

She conceived again, and bore a son. She said, "This time will I praise Yahweh." Therefore she named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing.

When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister. She said to Jacob, "Give me children, or else I will die."

Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, "Am I in God's place, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?"

She said, "Behold, my maid Bilhah. Go in to her, that she may bear on my knees, and I also may obtain children by her."

Rachel said, "God has judged me, and has also heard my voice, and has given me a son." Therefore called she his name Dan.

Rachel said, "With mighty wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed." She named him Naphtali.

Leah said, "How fortunate!" She named him Gad.

Leah said, "Happy am I, for the daughters will call me happy." She named him Asher.

Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother, Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, "Please give me some of your son's mandrakes."

She said to her, "Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes, also?" Rachel said, "Therefore he will lie with you tonight for your son's mandrakes."

Jacob came from the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, "You must come in to me; for I have surely hired you with my son's mandrakes." He lay with her that night.

Leah said, "God has given me my hire, because I gave my handmaid to my husband." She named him Issachar.

Leah said, "God has endowed me with a good dowry. Now my husband will live with me, because I have borne him six sons." She named him Zebulun.

She conceived, bore a son, and said, "God has taken away my reproach."

It happened, when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, "Send me away, that I may go to my own place, and to my country.

Laban said to him, "If now I have found favor in your eyes, stay here, for I have divined that Yahweh has blessed me for your sake."

He said, "Appoint me your wages, and I will give it."

He said to him, "You know how I have served you, and how your livestock have fared with me.

He said, "What shall I give you?" Jacob said, "You shall not give me anything. If you will do this thing for me, I will again feed your flock and keep it.

Laban said, "Behold, let it be according to your word."

Yahweh said to Jacob, "Return to the land of your fathers, and to your relatives, and I will be with you."

and said to them, "I see the expression on your father's face, that it is not toward me as before; but the God of my father has been with me.

If he said this, 'The speckled will be your wages,' then all the flock bore speckled. If he said this, 'The streaked will be your wages,' then all the flock bore streaked.

The angel of God said to me in the dream, 'Jacob,' and I said, 'Here I am.'

He said, 'Now lift up your eyes, and behold, all the male goats which leap on the flock are streaked, speckled, and grizzled, for I have seen all that Laban does to you.

For all the riches which God has taken away from our father, that is ours and our children's. Now then, whatever God has said to you, do."

God came to Laban, the Syrian, in a dream of the night, and said to him, "Take heed to yourself that you don't speak to Jacob either good or bad."

Laban said to Jacob, "What have you done, that you have deceived me, and carried away my daughters like captives of the sword?

Jacob answered Laban, "Because I was afraid, for I said, 'Lest you should take your daughters from me by force.'

She said to her father, "Don't let my lord be angry that I can't rise up before you; for I'm having my period." He searched, but didn't find the teraphim.

Jacob said to his relatives, "Gather stones." They took stones, and made a heap. They ate there by the heap.

Laban said, "This heap is witness between me and you this day." Therefore it was named Galeed

and Mizpah, for he said, "Yahweh watch between me and you, when we are absent one from another.

Laban said to Jacob, "See this heap, and see the pillar, which I have set between me and you.

When he saw them, Jacob said, "This is God's army." He called the name of that place Mahanaim.

and he said, "If Esau comes to the one company, and strikes it, then the company which is left will escape."

Jacob said, "God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, Yahweh, who said to me, 'Return to your country, and to your relatives, and I will do you good,'

You said, 'I will surely do you good, and make your seed as the sand of the sea, which can't be numbered because there are so many.'"

He delivered them into the hands of his servants, every herd by itself, and said to his servants, "Pass over before me, and put a space between herd and herd."

You shall say, 'Not only that, but behold, your servant, Jacob, is behind us.'" For, he said, "I will appease him with the present that goes before me, and afterward I will see his face. Perhaps he will accept me."

The man said, "Let me go, for the day breaks." Jacob said, "I won't let you go, unless you bless me."

He said to him, "What is your name?" He said, "Jacob."

He said, "Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have fought with God and with men, and have prevailed."

Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." He said, "Why is it that you ask what my name is?" He blessed him there.

Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for, he said, "I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."

He lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, "Who are these with you?" He said, "The children whom God has graciously given your servant."

Esau said, "What do you mean by all this company which I met?" Jacob said, "To find favor in the sight of my lord."

Esau said, "I have enough, my brother; let that which you have be yours."

Jacob said, "Please, no, if I have now found favor in your sight, then receive my present at my hand, because I have seen your face, as one sees the face of God, and you were pleased with me.

Esau said, "Let us take our journey, and let us go, and I will go before you."

Jacob said to him, "My lord knows that the children are tender, and that the flocks and herds with me have their young, and if they overdrive them one day, all the flocks will die.

Esau said, "Let me now leave with you some of the folk who are with me." He said, "Why? Let me find favor in the sight of my lord."

Shechem said to her father and to her brothers, "Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you will tell me I will give.

and said to them, "We can't do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised; for that is a reproach to us.

Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have troubled me, to make me odious to the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I am few in number. They will gather themselves together against me and strike me, and I will be destroyed, I and my house."

They said, "Should he deal with our sister as with a prostitute?"

God said to Jacob, "Arise, go up to Bethel, and live there. Make there an altar to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother."

Then Jacob said to his household, and to all who were with him, "Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, change your garments.

God said to him, "Your name is Jacob. Your name shall not be Jacob any more, but your name will be Israel." He named him Israel.

God said to him, "I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations will be from you, and kings will come out of your body.

When she was in hard labor, the midwife said to her, "Don't be afraid, for now you will have another son."

He said to them, "Please hear this dream which I have dreamed:

His brothers said to him, "Will you indeed reign over us? Or will you indeed have dominion over us?" They hated him all the more for his dreams and for his words.

He dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, "Behold, I have dreamed yet another dream: and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down to me."

He told it to his father and to his brothers. His father rebuked him, and said to him, "What is this dream that you have dreamed? Will I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves down to you to the earth?"

Israel said to Joseph, "Aren't your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, and I will send you to them." He said to him, "Here I am."

He said to him, "Go now, see whether it is well with your brothers, and well with the flock; and bring me word again." So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.

He said, "I am looking for my brothers. Tell me, please, where they are feeding the flock."

The man said, "They have left here, for I heard them say, 'Let us go to Dothan.'" Joseph went after his brothers, and found them in Dothan.

They said one to another, "Behold, this dreamer comes.

Reuben heard it, and delivered him out of their hand, and said, "Let's not take his life."

Reuben said to them, "Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him" -- that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his father.

Judah said to his brothers, "What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?

He returned to his brothers, and said, "The child is no more; and I, where will I go?"

They took the coat of many colors, and they brought it to their father, and said, "We have found this. Examine it, now, whether it is your son's coat or not."

He recognized it, and said, "It is my son's coat. An evil animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces."

All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, "For I will go down to Sheol to my son mourning." His father wept for him.

Judah said to Onan, "Go in to your brother's wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her, and raise up seed to your brother."

Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, "Remain a widow in your father's house, until Shelah, my son, is grown up;" for he said, "Lest he also die, like his brothers." Tamar went and lived in her father's house.

He turned to her by the way, and said, "Please come, let me come in to you," for he didn't know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, "What will you give me, that you may come in to me?"