Afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them.

When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a peaceful man, living in tents.

Now Isaac loved Esau, because he had a taste for game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

When Jacob had cooked stew, Esau came in from the field and he was famished;

and Esau said to Jacob, “Please let me have a swallow of that red stuff there, for I am famished.” Therefore his name was called Edom.

But Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.”

And Jacob said, “First swear to me”; so he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob.

Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he ate and drank, and rose and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Behold, I heard your father speak to your brother Esau, saying,

Jacob answered his mother Rebekah, “Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man and I am a smooth man.

Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau her elder son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son.

She also gave the savory food and the bread, which she had made, to her son Jacob.

Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn; I have done as you told me. Get up, please, sit and eat of my game, that you may bless me.”

Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come close, that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not.”

So Jacob came close to Isaac his father, and he felt him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”

Now it came about, as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had hardly gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting.

Then he said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob, for he has supplanted me these two times? He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.” And he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?”

So Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him; and Esau said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”

Now when the words of her elder son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she sent and called her younger son Jacob, and said to him, “Behold your brother Esau is consoling himself concerning you by planning to kill you.

Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am tired of living because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, like these, from the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?”

So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him, and said to him, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.

Then Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take to himself a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he charged him, saying, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,”

and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan-aram.

Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran.

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

So Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top.

Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear,

Then Jacob went on his journey, and came to the land of the sons of the east.

Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where are you from?” And they said, “We are from Haran.”

When Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother.

Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted his voice and wept.

Jacob told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and that he was Rebekah’s son, and she ran and told her father.

So when Laban heard the news of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Then he related to Laban all these things.

Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?”

Now Jacob loved Rachel, so he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”

So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her.

Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my time is completed, that I may go in to her.”

Now in the evening he took his daughter Leah, and brought her to him; and Jacob went in to her.

Jacob did so and completed her week, and he gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife.

So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and indeed he loved Rachel more than Leah, and he served with Laban for another seven years.

Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she became jealous of her sister; and she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I die.”

Then Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”

So she gave him her maid Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her.

Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son.

Rachel’s maid Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.

When Leah saw that she had stopped bearing, she took her maid Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.

Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a son.

Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a second son.

When Jacob came in from the field in the evening, then 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.” So he lay with her that night.

God gave heed to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.

Leah conceived again and bore a sixth son to Jacob.

Now it came about when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own place and to my own country.

So he said, “What shall I give you?” And Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this one thing for me, I will again pasture and keep your flock:

And he put a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks.

Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white stripes in them, exposing the white which was in the rods.

Jacob separated the lambs, and made the flocks face toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban; and he put his own herds apart, and did not put them with Laban’s flock.

Moreover, whenever the stronger of the flock were mating, Jacob would place the rods in the sight of the flock in the gutters, so that they might mate by the rods;

but when the flock was feeble, he did not put them in; so the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s.

Now Jacob heard the words of Laban’s sons, saying, “Jacob has taken away all that was our father’s, and from what belonged to our father he has made all this wealth.”

Jacob saw the attitude of Laban, and behold, it was not friendly toward him as formerly.

Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”

So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to his flock in the field,

Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Here I am.’

Then Jacob arose and put his children and his wives upon camels;

And Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was fleeing.

When it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob had fled,

God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream of the night and said to him, “Be careful that you do not speak to Jacob either good or bad.”

Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his kinsmen camped in the hill country of Gilead.

Then Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done by deceiving me and carrying away my daughters like captives of the sword?

It is in my power to do you harm, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful not to speak either good or bad to Jacob.’

Then Jacob replied to Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force.

The one with whom you find your gods shall not live; in the presence of our kinsmen point out what is yours among my belongings and take it for yourself.” For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.

So Laban went into Jacob’s tent and into Leah’s tent and into the tent of the two maids, but he did not find them. Then he went out of Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s tent.

Then Jacob became angry and contended with Laban; and Jacob said to Laban, “What is my transgression? What is my sin that you have hotly pursued me?

Then Laban replied to Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, and the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day to these my daughters or to their children whom they have borne?

Then Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar.

Jacob said to his kinsmen, “Gather stones.” So they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap.

Now Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed.

Laban said to Jacob, “Behold this heap and behold the pillar which I have set between you and me.

The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.” So Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac.

Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain, and called his kinsmen to the meal; and they ate the meal and spent the night on the mountain.

Now as Jacob went on his way, the angels of God met him.

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

Then Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.

He also commanded them saying, “Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: ‘Thus says your servant Jacob, “I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until now;

The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and furthermore he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.”

Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and the herds and the camels, into two companies;

Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will prosper you,’

then you shall say, ‘These belong to your servant Jacob; it is a present sent to my lord Esau. And behold, he also is behind us.’”

and you shall say, ‘Behold, your servant Jacob also is behind us.’” For he said, “I will appease him with the present that goes before me. Then afterward I will see his face; perhaps he will accept me.”

Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.

So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”

He said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.”

Then Jacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And he blessed him there.

So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.”

Therefore, to this day the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip which is on the socket of the thigh, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the hip.

Then Jacob lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids.

Jacob said, “No, please, if now I have found favor in your sight, then take my present from my hand, for I see your face as one sees the face of God, and you have received me favorably.