Jacob Meets Esau

33 Jacob looked and saw Esau coming with 400 men. Jacob divided his family into four groups. Leah and her children were in one group, Rachel and Joseph were in one group, and the two maids and their children were in two groups. ² Jacob put the maids with their children first. Then he put Leah and her children behind them, and he put Rachel and Joseph in the last place.

³ Jacob himself went out before them. While he was walking toward his brother Esau, he bowed down to the ground seven times.

⁴ When Esau saw Jacob, he ran to meet him. He put his arms around Jacob, hugged his neck, and kissed him. Then they both cried. ⁵ Esau looked up and saw the women and children. He said, “Who are all these people with you?”

Jacob answered, “These are the children that God gave me. God has been good to me.”

⁶ Then the two maids and the children with them went to Esau. They bowed down before him. ⁷ Then Leah and the children with her went to Esau and bowed down. And then Rachel and Joseph went to him and bowed down.

⁸ Esau said, “Who were all those people I saw while I was coming here? And what were all those animals for?”

Jacob answered, “These are my gifts to you so that you might accept me.”

⁹ But Esau said, “You don’t have to give me gifts, brother. I have enough for myself.”

¹⁰ Jacob said, “No, I beg you! If you really accept me, please accept the gifts I give you. I am very happy to see your face again. It is like seeing the face of God. I am very happy to see that you accept me. ¹¹ So I beg you to also accept the gifts I give you. God has been very good to me. I have more than I need.” Because Jacob begged Esau to take the gifts, he accepted them.

¹² Then Esau said, “Now you can continue your journey. I will go with you.”

¹³ But Jacob said to him, “You know that my children are weak. And I must be careful with my flocks and their young animals. If I force them to walk too far in one day, all the animals will die. ¹⁴ So you go on ahead. I will follow you slowly. I will go slowly enough for the cattle and other animals to be safe and so that my children will not get too tired. I will meet you in Seir.”

¹⁵ So Esau said, “Then I will leave some of my men to help you.”

But Jacob said, “That is very kind of you, but there is no need to do that.” ¹⁶ So that day Esau started on his trip back to Seir. ¹⁷ But Jacob went to Succoth.^[a] There he built a house for himself and small barns for his cattle. That is why the place was named Succoth.

¹⁸ Jacob safely ended his trip from Paddan Aram when he came to the town of Shechem in Canaan. He made his camp in a field near the city. ¹⁹ He bought the field where he camped from the family of Hamor, father of Shechem. He paid 100 pieces of silver for it. ²⁰ He built an altar there to honor God. He named the place “El,^[b] the God of Israel.”

The Rape of Dinah

34 One day, Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, went out to see the women of that place. ² She was seen by Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, who ruled that area. Shechem took Dinah and raped her. ³ But he was so attracted to her that he fell in love and began expressing his feelings to her. ⁴ He told his father, “Please get this girl for me so that I can marry her.”

⁵ Jacob learned that Shechem had done this very bad thing to his daughter. But all his sons were out in the fields with the cattle. So he did nothing until they came home. ⁶ Then Shechem’s father, Hamor, came out to talk with Jacob.

⁷ In the fields Jacob’s sons heard the news about what had happened. They were very angry because Shechem had brought shame to Israel by raping Jacob’s daughter. They came in from the fields as soon as they heard about the terrible thing Shechem had done.

⁸ But Hamor talked to Dinah’s brothers and said, “My son Shechem wants Dinah very much. Please let him marry her. ⁹ This marriage will show we have a special agreement. Then our men can marry your women, and your men can marry our women. ¹⁰ You can live in the same land with us. You will be free to own the land and to trade here.”

¹¹ Shechem also talked to Jacob and to Dinah’s brothers and said, “Please accept me. I will do anything you ask me to do. ¹² I will give you any gift^[c] you want if you will only allow me to marry Dinah. I will give you anything you ask, but let me marry her.”

¹³ Jacob’s sons decided to lie to Shechem and his father because Shechem had done such a bad thing to their sister Dinah. ¹⁴ The brothers said to them, “We cannot allow our sister to marry you because you are not yet circumcised. That would bring us shame. ¹⁵ But we will allow you to marry her if you do this one thing: Every man in your town must be circumcised like us. ¹⁶ Then your men can marry our women, and our men can marry your women. Then we will become one people. ¹⁷ If you refuse to be circumcised, we will take Dinah away.”

¹⁸ This agreement made Hamor and Shechem very happy. ¹⁹ Shechem was very happy to do what Dinah’s brothers asked.

Shechem was the most honored man in his family. ²⁰ Hamor and Shechem went to the meeting place of their city. They spoke to the men of the city and said, ²¹ “These people want to be friends with us. We want to let them live in our land and be at peace with us. We have enough land for all of us. We are free to marry their women, and we are happy to give them our women to marry. ²² But there is one thing that all our men must agree to do. They must agree to be circumcised as they are. ²³ If we do this, we will become rich from all their cattle and other animals. We should make this agreement with them so that they will stay here with us.” ²⁴ All the men who heard this in the meeting place agreed with Hamor and Shechem. And every man was circumcised at that time.

²⁵ Three days later the men who were circumcised were still sore. Two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, knew that the men would be weak at this time. So they went to the city and killed all the men there. ²⁶ Dinah’s brothers, Simeon and Levi, killed Hamor and his son Shechem. Then they took Dinah out of Shechem’s house and left. ²⁷ Jacob’s sons went to the city and stole everything that was there because of what Shechem had done to their sister. ²⁸ So the brothers took all their animals, all their donkeys, and everything else in the city and in the fields. ²⁹ The brothers took everything those people owned. They even took their wives and children.

³⁰ But Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have caused me a lot of trouble. All the people in this place will hate me. All the Canaanites and the Perizzites will turn against me. There are only a few of us. If the people in this place gather together to fight against us, I will be destroyed. And all our people will be destroyed with me.”

³¹ But the brothers said, “Should we let these people treat our sister like a prostitute? They were wrong to do that to our sister!”