You did not even let me give a kiss to my sons and my daughters. This was a foolish thing to do.

It is in my power to do you damage: but the God of your father came to me this night, saying, Take care that you say nothing good or bad to Jacob.

And Jacob, in answer, said to Laban, My fear was that you might take your daughters from me by force.

As for your gods, if anyone of us has them, let him be put to death: make search before us all for what is yours, and take it. For Jacob had no knowledge that Rachel had taken them.

So Laban went into Jacob's tent and into Leah's tent, and into the tents of the two servant-women, but they were not there; and he came out of Leah's tent and went into Rachel's.

And she said to her father, Let not my lord be angry because I do not get up before you, for I am in the common condition of women. And with all his searching, he did not come across the images.

Anything which was wounded by beasts I did not take to you, but myself made up for the loss of it; you made me responsible for whatever was taken by thieves, by day or by night.

This was my condition, wasted by heat in the day and by the bitter cold at night; and sleep went from my eyes.

Then Laban, answering, said, These women are my daughters and these children my children, the flocks and all you see are mine: what now may I do for my daughters and for their children?

And Jacob said to his people, Get stones together; and they did so; and they had a meal there by the stones.

And Mizpah, for he said, May the Lord keep watch on us when we are unable to see one another's doings.

If you are cruel to my daughters, or if you take other wives in addition to my daughters, then though no man is there to see, God will be the witness between us.

They will be witness that I will not go over these stones to you, and you will not go over these stones or this pillar to me, for any evil purpose.

And Jacob made an offering on the mountain, and gave orders to his people to take food: so they had a meal and took their rest that night on the mountain.

And early in the morning Laban, after kissing and blessing his daughters, went on his way back to his country.

And on his way Jacob came face to face with the angels of God.

Now Jacob sent servants before him to Esau, his brother, in the land of Seir, the country of Edom;

And he gave them orders to say these words to Esau: Your servant Jacob says, Till now I have been living with Laban:

And I have oxen and asses and flocks and men-servants and women-servants: and I have sent to give my lord news of these things so that I may have grace in his eyes.

When the servants came back they said, We have seen your brother Esau and he is coming out to you, and four hundred men with him.

Then Jacob was in great fear and trouble of mind: and he put all the people and the flocks and the herds and the camels into two groups;

Then Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, the God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, Go back to your country and your family and I will be good to you:

I am less than nothing in comparison with all your mercies and your faith to me your servant; for with only my stick in my hand I went across Jordan, and now I have become two armies.

Be my saviour from the hand of Esau, my brother: for my fear is that he will make an attack on me, putting to death mother and child.

And you said, Truly, I will be good to you, and make your seed like the sand of the sea which may not be numbered.

Two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats, two hundred females and twenty males from the sheep,

These he gave to his servants, every herd by itself, and he said to his servants, Go on before me, and let there be a space between one herd and another.

And he gave orders to the first, saying, When my brother Esau comes to you and says, Whose servant are you, and where are you going, and whose are these herds?

Then say to him, These are your servant Jacob's; they are an offering for my lord, for Esau; and he himself is coming after us.

And he gave the same orders to the second and the third and to all those who were with the herds, saying, This is what you are to say to Esau when you see him;

And you are to say further, Jacob, your servant, is coming after us. For he said to himself, I will take away his wrath by the offering which I have sent on, and then I will come before him: it may be that I will have grace in his eyes.

And in the night he got up, and taking with him his two wives and the two servant-women and his eleven children, he went over the river Jabbok.

But when the man saw that he was not able to overcome Jacob, he gave him a blow in the hollow part of his leg, so that his leg was damaged.

And he said to him, Let me go now, for the dawn is near. But Jacob said, I will not let you go till you have given me your blessing.

Then Jacob said, What is your name? And he said, What is my name to you? Then he gave him a blessing.

And Jacob gave that place the name of Peniel, saying, I have seen God face to face, and still I am living.

Then Jacob, lifting up his eyes, saw Esau coming with his four hundred men. So he made a division of the children between Leah and Rachel and the two women-servants.

And he himself, going before them, went down on his face to the earth seven times till he came near his brother.

Then Esau came running up to him, and folding him in his arms, gave him a kiss: and the two of them were overcome with weeping.

Then Esau, lifting up his eyes, saw the women and the children, and said, Who are these with you? And he said, The children whom God in his mercy has given to your servant.

Take my offering then, with my blessing; for God has been very good to me and I have enough: so at his strong request, he took it.

But Jacob said, My lord may see that the children are only small, and there are young ones in my flocks and herds: one day's over-driving will be the destruction of all the flock.

Do you, my lord, go on before your servant; I will come on slowly, at the rate at which the cattle and the children are able to go, till I come to my lord at Seir.

So Esau, turning back that day, went on his way to Seir.

And Jacob went on to Succoth, where he made a house for himself and put up tents for his cattle: for this reason the place was named Succoth.

So Jacob came safely from Paddan-aram to the town of Shechem in the land of Canaan, and put up his tents near the town.

Now Dinah, the daughter whom Leah had by Jacob, went out to see the women of that country.

Then his heart went out in love to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and he said comforting words to her.

And Shechem said to Hamor, his father, Get me this girl for my wife.

Now Jacob had word of what Shechem had done to his daughter; but his sons were in the fields with the cattle, and Jacob said nothing till they came.

Then Hamor, the father of Shechem, came out to have a talk with Jacob.

Now the sons of Jacob came in from the fields when they had news of it, and they were wounded and very angry because of the shame he had done in Israel by having connection with Jacob's daughter; and they said, Such a thing is not to be done.

But Hamor said to them, Shechem, my son, is full of desire for your daughter: will you then give her to him for a wife?

And let our two peoples be joined together; give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves.

Go on living with us, and the country will be open to you; do trade and get property there.

And Shechem said to her father and her brothers, If you will give ear to my request, whatever you say I will give to you.

But the sons of Jacob gave a false answer to Shechem and Hamor his father, because of what had been done to Dinah their sister.

And they said, It is not possible for us to give our sister to one who is without circumcision, for that would be a cause of shame to us:

But on this condition only will we come to an agreement with you: if every male among you becomes like us and undergoes circumcision;

Then we will give our daughters to you and take your daughters to us and go on living with you as one people.

And their words were pleasing to Hamor and his son Shechem.

Then Hamor and Shechem, his son, went to the meeting-place of their town, and said to the men of the town,

It is the desire of these men to be at peace with us; let them then go on living in this country and doing trade here, for the country is wide open before them; let us take their daughters as wives and let us give them our daughters.

But these men will make an agreement with us to go on living with us and to become one people, only on the condition that every male among us undergoes circumcision as they have done.

Then will not their cattle and their goods and all their beasts be ours? so let us come to an agreement with them so that they may go on living with us.

Then all the men of the town gave ear to the words of Hamor and Shechem his son; and every male in the town underwent circumcision.

But on the third day after, before the wounds were well, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and came into the town by surprise and put all the males to death.

And Hamor and his son they put to death with the sword, and they took Dinah from Shechem's house and went away.

And the sons of Jacob came on them when they were wounded and made waste the town because of what had been done to their sister;

And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, You have made trouble for me and given me a bad name among the people of this country, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and because we are small in number they will come together against me and make war on me; and it will be the end of me and all my people.

But they said, Were we to let him make use of our sister as a loose woman?

And God said to Jacob, Go up now to Beth-el and make your living-place there: and put up an altar there to the God who came to you when you were in flight from your brother Esau.

Then Jacob said to all his people, Put away the strange gods which are among you, and make yourselves clean, and put on a change of clothing:

And let us go up to Beth-el: and there I will make an altar to God, who gave me an answer in the day of my trouble, and was with me wherever I went.

Then they gave to Jacob all the strange gods which they had, and the rings which were in their ears; and Jacob put them away under the holy tree at Shechem.

And Jacob came to Luz in the land of Canaan (which is the same as Beth-el), he and all his people.

And Deborah, the servant who had taken care of Rebekah from her birth, came to her end, and was put to rest near Beth-el, under the holy tree: and they gave it the name of Allon-bacuth.

Now when Jacob was on his way from Paddan-aram, God came to him again and, blessing him, said,

And God said to him, I am God, the Ruler of all: be fertile, and have increase; a nation, truly a group of nations, will come from you, and kings will be your offspring;

And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to you; and to your seed after you I will give the land.

And he gave to the place where God had been talking with him, the name of Beth-el.

And in the hour when her life went from her (for death came to her), she gave the child the name Ben-oni: but his father gave him the name of Benjamin.

So Rachel came to her end and was put to rest on the road to Ephrath (which is Beth-lehem).

And Jacob put up a pillar on her resting-place; which is named, The Pillar of the resting-place of Rachel, to this day.

And Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, at Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac had been living.

Then Isaac came to his end and was put to rest with his father's people, an old man after a long life: and Jacob and Esau, his sons, put him in his last resting-place.

Now these are the generations of Esau, that is to say, Edom.

For their wealth was so great that the land was not wide enough for the two of them and all their cattle.

And Eliphaz, the son of Esau, had connection with a woman named Timna, who gave birth to Amalek: all these were the children of Esau's wife Adah.

And because his brothers saw that Joseph was dearer to his father than all the others, they were full of hate for him, and would not say a kind word to him.

And he said to them, Let me give you the story of my dream.

And his brothers said to him, Are you to be our king? will you have authority over us? And because of his dream and his words, their hate for him became greater than ever.

Then he had another dream, and gave his brothers an account of it, saying, I have had another dream: the sun and the moon and eleven stars gave honour to me.

And he gave word of it to his father and his brothers; but his father protesting said, What sort of a dream is this? am I and your mother and your brothers to go down on our faces to the earth before you?

Now his brothers went to keep watch over their father's flock in Shechem.

And Israel said to Joseph, Are not your brothers with the flock in Shechem? come, I will send you to them. And he said to him, Here am I.

And he said to him, Go now, and see if your brothers are well and how the flock is; then come back and give me word. So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.

And a man saw him wandering in the country, and said to him, What are you looking for?

And the man said, They have gone away from here, for they said in my hearing, Let us go to Dothan. So Joseph went after them and came up with them at Dothan.

But they saw him when he was a long way off, and before he came near them they made a secret design against him to put him to death;