Jacob sent messengers on ahead to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the region of Edom.

He commanded them, "This is what you must say to my lord Esau: 'This is what your servant Jacob says: I have been staying with Laban until now.

I have oxen, donkeys, sheep, and male and female servants. I have sent this message to inform my lord, so that I may find favor in your sight.'"

The messengers returned to Jacob and said, "We went to your brother Esau. He is coming to meet you and has four hundred men with him."

Jacob was very afraid and upset. So he divided the people who were with him into two camps, as well as the flocks, herds, and camels.

"If Esau attacks one camp," he thought, "then the other camp will be able to escape."

Then Jacob prayed, "O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord, you said to me, 'Return to your land and to your relatives and I will make you prosper.'

I am not worthy of all the faithful love you have shown your servant. With only my walking stick I crossed the Jordan, but now I have become two camps.

But you said, 'I will certainly make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand on the seashore, too numerous to count.'"

Jacob stayed there that night. Then he sent as a gift to his brother Esau

two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,

He entrusted them to his servants, who divided them into herds. He told his servants, "Pass over before me, and keep some distance between one herd and the next."

He instructed the servant leading the first herd, "When my brother Esau meets you and asks, 'To whom do you belong? Where are you going? Whose herds are you driving?'

then you must say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. They have been sent as a gift to my lord Esau. In fact Jacob himself is behind us.'"

He also gave these instructions to the second and third servants, as well as all those who were following the herds, saying, "You must say the same thing to Esau when you meet him.

During the night Jacob quickly took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.

Then Jacob asked, "Please tell me your name." "Why do you ask my name?" the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there.

So Jacob named the place Peniel, explaining, "Certainly I have seen God face to face and have survived."

That is why to this day the Israelites do not eat the sinew which is attached to the socket of the hip, because he struck the socket of Jacob's hip near the attached sinew.

Jacob looked up and saw that Esau was coming along with four hundred men. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two female servants.

But Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, hugged his neck, and kissed him. Then they both wept.

Esau then asked, "What did you intend by sending all these herds to meet me?" Jacob replied, "To find favor in your sight, my lord."

But Esau said, "I have plenty, my brother. Keep what belongs to you."

Please take my present that was brought to you, for God has been generous to me and I have all I need." When Jacob urged him, he took it.

But Jacob said to him, "My lord knows that the children are young, and that I have to look after the sheep and cattle that are nursing their young. If they are driven too hard for even a single day, all the animals will die.

Let my lord go on ahead of his servant. I will travel more slowly, at the pace of the herds and the children, until I come to my lord at Seir."

So Esau said, "Let me leave some of my men with you." "Why do that?" Jacob replied. "My lord has already been kind enough to me."

So that same day Esau made his way back to Seir.

But Jacob traveled to Succoth where he built himself a house and made shelters for his livestock. That is why the place was called Succoth.

After he left Paddan Aram, Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem in the land of Canaan, and he camped near the city.

Now Dinah, Leah's daughter whom she bore to Jacob, went to meet the young women of the land.

Then he became very attached to Dinah, Jacob's daughter. He fell in love with the young woman and spoke romantically to her.

Shechem said to his father Hamor, "Acquire this young girl as my wife."

Then Shechem's father Hamor went to speak with Jacob about Dinah.

But Hamor made this appeal to them: "My son Shechem is in love with your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife.

You may live among us, and the land will be open to you. Live in it, travel freely in it, and acquire property in it."

Then Shechem said to Dinah's father and brothers, "Let me find favor in your sight, and whatever you require of me I'll give.

They said to them, "We cannot give our sister to a man who is not circumcised, for it would be a disgrace to us.

Then we will give you our daughters to marry, and we will take your daughters as wives for ourselves, and we will live among you and become one people.

But if you do not agree to our terms by being circumcised, then we will take our sister and depart."

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

"These men are at peace with us. So let them live in the land and travel freely in it, for the land is wide enough for them. We will take their daughters for wives, and we will give them our daughters to marry.

Only on this one condition will these men consent to live with us and become one people: They demand that every male among us be circumcised just as they are circumcised.

If we do so, won't their livestock, their property, and all their animals become ours? So let's consent to their demand, so they will live among us."

In three days, when they were still in pain, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, each took his sword and went to the unsuspecting city and slaughtered every male.

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have brought ruin on me by making me a foul odor among the inhabitants of the land -- among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I am few in number; they will join forces against me and attack me, and both I and my family will be destroyed!"

Then God said to Jacob, "Go up at once to Bethel and live there. Make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau."

Let us go up at once to Bethel. Then I will make an altar there to God, who responded to me in my time of distress and has been with me wherever I went."

He built an altar there and named the place El Bethel because there 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 blessed him.

God said to him, "Your name is Jacob, but your name will no longer be called Jacob; Israel will be your name." So God named him Israel.

Then God said to him, "I am the sovereign God. Be fruitful and multiply! A nation -- even a company of nations -- will descend from you; kings will be among your descendants!

The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you. To your descendants I will also give this land."

When her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, "Don't be afraid, for you are having another son."

So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).

Jacob set up a marker over her grave; it is the Marker of Rachel's Grave to this day.

The sons of Zilpah, Leah's servant, were Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan Aram.

So Jacob came back to his father Isaac in Mamre, to Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed.

Isaac lived to be 180 years old.

in addition to Basemath the daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth.

Adah bore Eliphaz to Esau, Basemath bore Reuel,

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

Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, all the people in his household, his livestock, his animals, and all his possessions which he had acquired in the land of Canaan and went to a land some distance away from Jacob his brother

because they had too many possessions to be able to stay together and the land where they had settled was not able to support them because of their livestock.

Timna, a concubine of Esau's son Eliphaz, bore Amalek to Eliphaz. These were the sons of Esau's wife Adah.

These were the sons of Esau's wife Oholibamah the daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon: She bore Jeush, Jalam, and Korah to Esau.

chief Dishon, chief Ezer, chief Dishan. These were the chiefs of the Horites, according to their chief lists in the land of Seir.

These were the names of the chiefs of Esau, according to their families, according to their places, by their names: chief Timna, chief Alvah, chief Jetheth,

chief Magdiel, chief Iram. These were the chiefs of Edom, according to their settlements in the land they possessed. This was Esau, the father of the Edomites.

This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, his seventeen-year-old son, was taking care of the flocks with his brothers. Now he was a youngster working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was a son born to him late in life, and he made a special tunic for him.

When Joseph's brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated Joseph and were not able to speak to him kindly.

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

There we were, binding sheaves of grain in the middle of the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose up and stood upright and your sheaves surrounded my sheaf and bowed down to it!"

Then his brothers asked him, "Do you really think you will rule over us or have dominion over us?" They hated him even more because of his dream and because of what he said.

Then he had another dream, and told it to his brothers. "Look," he said. "I had another dream. The sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me."

When he told his father and his brothers, his father rebuked him, saying, "What is this dream that you had? Will I, your mother, and your brothers really come and bow down to you?"

When his brothers had gone to graze their father's flocks near Shechem,

Israel said to Joseph, "Your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I will send you to them." "I'm ready," Joseph replied.

So Jacob said to him, "Go now and check on the welfare of your brothers and of the flocks, and bring me word." So Jacob sent him from the valley of Hebron.

The man said, "They left this area, for I heard them say, 'Let's go to Dothan.'" So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

Now Joseph's brothers saw him from a distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

They said to one another, "Here comes this master of dreams!

Reuben continued, "Don't shed blood! Throw him into this cistern that is here in the wilderness, but don't lay a hand on him." (Reuben said this so he could rescue Joseph from them and take him back to his father.)

When they sat down to eat their food, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were carrying spices, balm, and myrrh down to Egypt.

Then Judah said to his brothers, "What profit is there if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?

Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let's not lay a hand on him, for after all, he is our brother, our own flesh." His brothers agreed.

So when the Midianite merchants passed by, Joseph's brothers pulled him out of the cistern and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. The Ishmaelites then took Joseph to Egypt.

Later Reuben returned to the cistern to find that Joseph was not in it! He tore his clothes,

returned to his brothers, and said, "The boy isn't there! And I, where can I go?"

Then they brought the special tunic to their father and said, "We found this. Determine now whether it is your son's tunic or not."

He recognized it and exclaimed, "It is my son's tunic! A wild animal has eaten him! Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!"

All his sons and daughters stood by him to console him, but he refused to be consoled. "No," he said, "I will go to the grave mourning my son." So Joseph's father wept for him.

Now in Egypt the Midianites sold Joseph to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard.

Then she had yet another son, whom she named Shelah. She gave birth to him in Kezib.

Then Judah said to Onan, "Have sexual relations with your brother's wife and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her so that you may raise up a descendant for your brother."

But Onan knew that the child would not be considered his. So whenever he had sexual relations with his brother's wife, he withdrew prematurely so as not to give his brother a descendant.

What he did was evil in the Lord's sight, so the Lord killed him too.

Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Live as a widow in your father's house until Shelah my son grows up." For he thought, "I don't want him to die like his brothers." So Tamar went and lived in her father's house.

After some time Judah's wife, the daughter of Shua, died. After Judah was consoled, he left for Timnah to visit his sheepshearers, along with his friend Hirah the Adullamite.