Jacob establishes worship at Bethel

35 God said to Jacob, “Get up, go to Bethel, and live there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you ran away from your brother Esau.”

² Jacob said to his household and to everyone who was with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you. Clean yourselves and change your clothes. ³ Then let’s rise and go up to Bethel so that I can build an altar there to the God who answered me when I was in trouble and who has been with me wherever I’ve gone.” ⁴ So they gave Jacob all of the foreign gods they had, as well as the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the terebinth at Shechem. ⁵ When they set out, God made all of the surrounding cities fearful so that they didn’t pursue Jacob’s sons. ⁶ Jacob and all of the people with him arrived in Luz, otherwise known as Bethel, in the land of Canaan. ⁷ He built an altar there and named the place El-bethel,^[a] because God had revealed himself to him there when he ran away from his brother. ⁸ Rebekah’s nurse Deborah died and was buried at Bethel under the oak, and Jacob named it Allon-bacuth.^[b]

⁹ God appeared to Jacob again, while he was on his way back from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. ¹⁰ God said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but your name will be Jacob no longer. No, your name will be Israel.” And he named him Israel. ¹¹ God said to him, “I am El Shaddai.^[c] Be fertile and multiply. A nation, even a large group of nations, will come from you; kings will descend from your own children. ¹² The land I gave to Abraham and to Isaac, I give to you; and I will give the land to your descendants after you.” ¹³ Then God ascended, leaving him alone in the place where he spoke to him. ¹⁴ So Jacob set up a sacred pillar, a stone pillar, at the place God spoke to him. He poured an offering of wine on it and then poured oil over it. ¹⁵ Jacob named the place Bethel where God spoke to him.

Benjamin’s birth and Rachel’s death

¹⁶ They left Bethel, and when they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel went into hard labor. ¹⁷ During her difficult labor, the midwife said to her, “Don’t be afraid. You have another son.” ¹⁸ As her life faded away, just before she died, she named him Ben-oni,^[d] but his father named him Benjamin.^{[e] 19} Rachel died and was buried near the road to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem. ²⁰ Jacob set up a pillar on her grave. It’s the pillar on Rachel’s tomb that’s still there today. ²¹ Israel continued his trip and pitched his tent farther on near the tower of Eder.

Jacob’s family

²² While Israel stayed in that place, Reuben went and slept with Bilhah his father’s secondary wife, and Israel heard about it.

Jacob had twelve sons. ²³ The sons of Leah were Reuben, Jacob’s oldest son, and Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. ²⁴ The sons of Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin. ²⁵ The sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s servant, were Dan and Naphtali. ²⁶ The sons of Zilpah, Leah’s servant, were Gad and Asher. These were Jacob’s sons born to him in Paddan-aram.

Isaac’s death

²⁷ Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, that is, Kiriath-arba. This is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac lived as immigrants. ²⁸ At the age of 180 years, ²⁹ Isaac took his last breath and died. He was buried with his ancestors after a long, satisfying life. His sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Esau’s descendants

36 These are the descendants of Esau, that is, Edom. ² Esau married Canaanite women: Adah the daughter of the Hittite Elon; Oholibamah the daughter of Anah son of the Hittite Zibeon,^{[f] 3} and Basemath the daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth. ⁴ Adah gave birth to Eliphaz for Esau, Basemath gave birth to Reuel, ⁵ and Oholibamah gave birth to Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. These are Esau’s sons born to him in the land of Canaan.

⁶ Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and everyone in his household, and his livestock, all of his animals, and all of the property he had acquired in the land of Canaan; and he moved away from the land of Canaan^[g] and from his brother Jacob. ⁷ They had so many possessions that they couldn’t live together. The land where they lived as immigrants couldn’t support all of their livestock. ⁸ So Esau, that is, Edom, lived in the mountains of Seir.

Joseph dreams of power

37 Jacob lived in the land of Canaan where his father was an immigrant. ² This is the account of Jacob’s descendants. Joseph was 17 years old and tended the flock with his brothers. While he was helping the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives, Joseph told their father unflattering things about them. ³ Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he was born when Jacob was old. Jacob had made for him a long^[k] robe. ⁴ When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of his brothers, they hated him and couldn’t even talk nicely to him.

⁵ Joseph had a dream and told it to his brothers, which made them hate him even more. ⁶ He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had. ⁷ When we were binding stalks of grain in the field, my stalk got up and stood upright, while your stalks gathered around it and bowed down to my stalk.”

⁸ His brothers said to him, “Will you really be our king and rule over us?” So they hated him even more because of the dreams he told them.

⁹ Then Joseph had another dream and described it to his brothers: “I’ve just dreamed again, and this time the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

¹⁰ When he described it to his father and brothers, his father scolded him and said to him, “What kind of dreams have you dreamed? Am I and your mother and your brothers supposed to come and bow down to the ground in front of you?” ¹¹ His brothers were jealous of him, but his father took careful note of the matter.

Joseph’s brothers take revenge

¹² Joseph’s brothers went to tend their father’s flocks near Shechem. ¹³ Israel said to Joseph, “Aren’t your brothers tending the sheep near Shechem? Come, I’ll send you to them.”

And he said, “I’m ready.”

¹⁴ Jacob said to him, “Go! Find out how your brothers are and how the flock is, and report back to me.”

So Jacob sent him from the Hebron Valley. When he approached Shechem, ¹⁵ a man found him wandering in the field and asked him, “What are you looking for?”

¹⁶ Joseph said, “I’m looking for my brothers. Tell me, where are they tending the sheep?”

¹⁷ The man said, “They left here. I heard them saying, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan.

¹⁸ They saw Joseph in the distance before he got close to them, and they plotted to kill him. ¹⁹ The brothers said to each other, “Here comes the big dreamer. ²⁰ Come on now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of the cisterns, and we’ll say a wild animal devoured him. Then we will see what becomes of his dreams!”

²¹ When Reuben heard what they said, he saved him from them, telling them, “Let’s not take his life.” ²² Reuben said to them, “Don’t spill his blood! Throw him into this desert cistern, but don’t lay a hand on him.” He intended to save Joseph from them and take him back to his father.

²³ When Joseph reached his brothers, they stripped off Joseph’s long robe, ²⁴ took him, and threw him into the cistern, an empty cistern with no water in it. ²⁵ When they sat down to eat, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with camels carrying sweet resin, medicinal resin, and fragrant resin on their way down to Egypt. ²⁶ Judah said to his brothers, “What do we gain if we kill our brother and hide his blood? ²⁷ Come on, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites. Let’s not harm him because he’s our brother; he’s family.” His brothers agreed. ²⁸ When some Midianite traders passed by, they pulled Joseph up out of the cistern. They sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph to Egypt.

²⁹ When Reuben returned to the cistern and found that Joseph wasn’t in it, he tore his clothes. ³⁰ Then he returned to his brothers and said, “The boy’s gone! And I—where can I go now?”

³¹ His brothers took Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a male goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. ³² They took the long robe, brought it to their father, and said, “We found this. See if it’s your son’s robe or not.”

³³ He recognized it and said, “It’s my son’s robe! A wild animal has devoured him. Joseph must have been torn to pieces!” ³⁴ Then Jacob tore his clothes, put a simple mourning cloth around his waist, and mourned for his son for many days. ³⁵ All of his sons and daughters got up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted, telling them, “I’ll go to my grave mourning for my son.” And Joseph’s father wept for him. ³⁶ Meanwhile the Midianites had sold Joseph to the Egyptians, to Potiphar, Pharaoh’s chief officer, commander of the royal guard.