Genesis
35
- Then God said to Jacob, "Go up to Bethel
and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when
you were fleeing from your brother Esau."
- So Jacob said to his household and to all
who were with him, "Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and
purify yourselves and change your clothes.
- Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where
I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and
who has been with me wherever I have gone."
- So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods
they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak
at Shechem.
- Then they set out, and the terror of God
fell upon the towns all around them so that no one pursued them.
- Jacob and all the people with him came to
Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan.
- There he built an altar, and he called the
place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him when
he was fleeing from his brother.
- Now Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died and was
buried under the oak below Bethel. So it was named Allon Bacuth.
- After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God
appeared to him again and blessed him.
- God said to him, "Your name is Jacob,
but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel." So
he named him Israel.
- And God said to him, "I am God Almighty;
be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will
come from you, and kings will come from your body.
- The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also
give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you."
- Then God went up from him at the place where
he had talked with him.
- Jacob set up a stone pillar at the place
where God had talked with him, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he
also poured oil on it.
- Jacob called the place where God had talked
with him Bethel.
- Then they moved on from Bethel. While they
were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and had
great difficulty.
- And as she was having great difficulty in
childbirth, the midwife said to her, "Don't be afraid, for you have another
son."
- As she breathed her last--for she was dying
-- she named her son Ben-Oni. But his father named him Benjamin.
- So Rachel died and was buried on the way
to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).
- Over her tomb Jacob set up a pillar, and
to this day that pillar marks Rachel's tomb.
- Israel moved on again and pitched his tent
beyond Migdal Eder.
- While Israel was living in that region,
Reuben went in and slept with his father's concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard
of it. Jacob had twelve sons:
- The sons of Leah: Reuben the firstborn of
Jacob, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun.
- The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.
- The sons of Rachel's maidservant Bilhah:
Dan and Naphtali.
- The sons of Leah's maidservant Zilpah: Gad
and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob, who were born to him in Paddan Aram.
- Jacob came home to his father Isaac in Mamre,
near Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed.
- Isaac lived a hundred and eighty years.
- Then he breathed his last and died and was
gathered to his people, old and full of years. And his sons Esau and Jacob
buried him.
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