So Jacob made an oath by his father's Fear, offered sacrifices there on the mountain, and called on his relatives to eat some food. So they ate the food and spent the night on the mountain.

Then Jacob sent messengers ahead of him into the land of Seir (that is, into the territory of Edom) to meet his brother Esau.

He instructed them, "This is what you are to say to my master Esau: "Your servant Jacob told me to tell you, "I've journeyed to stay with Laban and I've remained there until now.

I now have cattle, donkeys, flocks, and male and female servants. I'm sending this message to you, sir, so that you'll show favor to me."'"

Later, the messengers returned to Jacob and reported, "We went to your brother Esau. He's now coming to meet you and he has 400 men with him!"

Feeling mounting terror and distress, Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, doing the same with the flocks, the cattle, and the camels.

Jacob was thinking, "If Esau comes to one group and attacks it, then the remaining group may escape."

Then Jacob prayed, "O God of my father Abraham, O God of my father Isaac, O LORD, you who told me, "Return to your country and to your relatives and I'll cause things to go well for you.'

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.

Deliver me from my brother Esau's control, because I'm terrified of him, and I'm afraid that he's coming to attack me, the mothers, and their children.

Now, you promised me that "I'm certainly going to cause things to go well with you, and I'm going to make your offspring as numerous as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.'"

To the first group he said, "When you meet my brother Esau, if he asks, "To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And to whom do these herds belong?'

then you are to reply, "We're from your servant Jacob. The herds are a gift. He's sending them to my master, Esau. Look! There he is, coming along behind us.'"

He issued similar instructions to the second and third group, as well as to all the others who drove the herds that followed: "This is how you are to speak to Esau when you find him.

You are to tell him, "Look! Your servant Jacob is coming along behind us.'"

Later that night, he woke up, quickly took his two wives, his two women servants, and his eleven children, and forded the river at Jabbok.

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,

and said, "Let me go, because the dawn has come." "I won't let you go," Jacob replied, "unless you bless me."

"Your name won't be Jacob anymore," the man replied, "but Israel, because you exerted yourself against both God and men, and you've emerged victorious."

Jacob would later call that place Peniel, because "I saw God face to face, but my life was spared."

The sun was rising above Jacob as he crossed over from Peniel, limping due to his wounded thigh.

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.

When Jacob looked off in the distance, there was Esau coming toward him, accompanied by 400 men! So Jacob divided Leah's children, Rachel, and the children of the two servants into separate groups.

Then he went out to meet Esau, passing in front of all of them, and bowed low to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.

Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him. Then he fell on his neck and kissed him. And they wept.

Then Esau asked, "What are all these livestock for?" "To solicit favor from you, sir," Jacob answered.

But Esau replied, "I already have so much, my brother, so keep what belongs to you."

"Please," Jacob implored him, "don't refuse. If I'm to receive favor from you, then receive this gift from me, because seeing your face is like seeing the face of God, since you have favorably accepted me.

So receive my blessing, which has been sent to you, since God has been gracious to me. Besides, I have enough." Because Jacob kept pressing him, Esau accepted the gifts.

"Sir, you know that the children are frail," Jacob suggested, "and the ewes and cows with me are still nursing their young. If they're driven even for a day, the entire flock will die.

So allow yourself to go ahead of your servant while I travel more slowly, letting the herds set their own pace with the children until I arrive to see my lord in Seir."

"Why do that?" Jacob asked. "I've already found favor in your sight, sir." So Esau set out that very day back on his way to Seir,

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

He was attached to Dinah, Jacob's daughter, since he loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her.

Then Shechem told his father Hamor, "Get this young woman for me to be my wife."

Meanwhile, Shechem's father Hamor arrived to talk to Jacob.

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 Hamor said this: "My son is deeply attracted to your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife.

Intermarry with us. Give your daughters to us and take our sons for yourselves.

No matter how big or how extensive your demands are for a dowry and wedding presents from me, I'll provide whatever you ask. Only give me the young lady to be my wife."

They told them, "We can't do this. We can't give our sister to a man who isn't circumcised, because that would be insulting to us.

But we'll agree to your request, only if you will become like us by circumcising every male among you.

Then we'll give our daughters to you and take your daughters for ourselves, live among you, and be as a united people.

But if you won't listen to us, then we're going to take our daughter and leave."

"These men are at peace with us," they announced. "Therefore, let them live in the land and trade in it. Look! The land is large enough for them. Let's take their daughters as wives for ourselves and let's give our sons to them.

"However," they added, "only on this condition will the men consent to live with us and be united as a single people with us: every male among us will have to be circumcised just as they are.

Shouldn't all their cattle, acquisitions, and animals belong to us? So, let's give our consent to them, and then they'll live with us."

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

Three days later, while they were still in pain, Jacob's sons Simeon and Levi, two of Dinah's brothers, each grabbed a sword and entered the city unannounced, intending to kill all the males.

Then Jacob told Simeon and Levi, "You have certainly stirred up trouble for me! You've made me despised by the Canaanites and the Perizzites who live in this territory. Because I have only a few men with me, they're going to gather themselves together and attack me until I am totally destroyed, along with my entire household!"

Later, God told Jacob, "Get up, move to Bethel, and live there. Build an altar to the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau."

Jacob announced to his household and to everyone with him, "Throw away the foreign gods that you've kept among you, purify yourselves, and change your clothes.

Then let's get up and go to Bethel, where I'll build an altar to the God who answered me when I was in distress and who was with me on the road, wherever I went."

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.

Then God told him, "Your name is Jacob. No longer are you to be called Jacob. Instead, your name will be Israel."

So God called his name Israel and also told him, "I am God Almighty. You are to be fruitful and multiply. You will become a nation in fact, an assembly of nations! Kings will come from you they'll emerge from your own loins!

Now as for the land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I'm giving it to you and to your descendants who come after you. I'm giving the land to you!"

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.

Later, they set out from Beth-el. While still a long way from Ephrathah, Rachel started to have trouble giving birth.

While she was suffering due to her difficult labor, the midwife told her, "Don't fear! You're going to have another son."

So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrathah, also known as Bethlehem.

Jacob erected a pillar over her grave, and that pillar stands over Rachel's grave to this day.

Leah's servant Zilpah's sons were Gad and Asher. These were Jacob's sons who were born to him while he lived in Paddan-aram.

Adah bore Eliphaz to Esau, Basemath bore Reuel, and

Oholibamah bore Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. These were Esau's sons, who were born to him in the territory of Canaan.

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.

Timnah was a concubine of Esau's son Eliphaz. She bore Amalek to Eliphaz.

Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan. These were the tribal leaders who descended from the Horites, according to their tribal leaders in the territory of Seir.

These were the names of the chiefs who descended from Esau according to their clans, territories, and names: tribal leaders Timna, Alvah, Jetheth,

Magdiel, and Iram. These were the chiefs who descended from Edom, according to their territories in their own land. This was the dynasty of Esau, who was the ancestor of the Edomites.

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.

When Joseph's brothers realized that their father loved him more than all of his brothers, they hated him so much that they were unable to speak politely to 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!

"We were tying sheaves together out in the middle of the fields, when all of a sudden, my sheaf stood up erect! And then your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf!"

At this, his brothers replied, "Do you really think you're going to rule us or lord it over us?" So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his interpretations of them.

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!"

When Joseph told his father about this, his father rebuked him and asked him, "What kind of dream is that? Will I, your mother, and your brothers really come to you and bow down to the ground in front of you?"

Some time later, his brothers left to tend their father's flock in Shechem.

And Israel instructed Joseph, "Your brothers are tending the flock in Shechem. Come here, because I'm going to send you to them." "Here I am!" he responded.

"They've already left," the man answered. "I heard them saying that they were headed to Dothan." So Joseph followed his brothers to Dothan and found them there.

Now as soon as they saw him approaching from a distance, before he arrived they plotted together to kill him.

Come on! Let's kill him and toss him into one of the cisterns. Then we'll report that some wild animal devoured him and wait to see what becomes of his dreams!"

When Reuben heard about it, he tried to save Joseph from their plot. "Let's not do any killing,"

Reuben told them. "And no blood shedding, either. Instead, let's toss him into this cistern that's way out here in the wilderness. But don't lay a hand on him." (Reuben intended to free Joseph and return him to his father.)

Then Judah suggested to his brothers, "Where's the profit in just killing our brother and shedding his blood?

Come on! Let's sell him to the Ishmaelites! That way, we won't have laid our hands on him. After all, he's our brother, our own flesh."

So Judah's brothers listened to him. As the Midianite merchants were passing through, they extracted Joseph from the cistern and sold Joseph for 20 pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, who then took Joseph down to Egypt.

Later, when Reuben returned to the cistern, Joseph wasn't there! In mounting panic, he tore his clothes,

returned to his brothers, and shouted, "He's not there! Now what? Where am I to go?"

Then they stretched out the richly-embroidered tunic to dry, and brought it to their father. "We've found this," they reported. "Look at it and see if this is or isn't your son's tunic."

Examining it, he cried out, "It's my son's tunic! A wild animal has no doubt torn Joseph to pieces."

All his sons and daughters showed up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He kept saying, "Leave me alone! I'll go down to the next world, still mourning for my son." So Joseph's father wept for him.

Meanwhile, down in Egypt, the Midianites sold Joseph to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's court officials, who was also Commander-in-Chief of the imperial guards.

Right about then, Judah left his brothers and went to live with an Adullamite man named Hirah.

But the LORD considered Er, Judah's oldest son, to be wicked so he put him to death.