Genesis 32-35

Genesis 32

¹And on his way Jacob came face to face with the angels of God.

²And when he saw them he said, This is the army of God: so he gave that place the name of Mahanaim.

³Now Jacob sent servants before him to Esau, his brother, in the land of Seir, the country of Edom;

⁴And he gave them orders to say these words to Esau: Your servant Jacob says, Till now I have been living with Laban:

⁵And I have oxen and asses and flocks and men-servants and women-servants: and I have sent to give my lord news of these things so that I may have grace in his eyes.

⁶When the servants came back they said, We have seen your brother Esau and he is coming out to you, and four hundred men with him.

⁷Then Jacob was in great fear and trouble of mind: and he put all the people and the flocks and the herds and the camels into two groups;

⁸And said, If Esau, meeting one group, makes an attack on them, the others will get away safely.

⁹Then Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, the God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, Go back to your country and your family and I will be good to you:

¹⁰I am less than nothing in comparison with all your mercies and your faith to me your servant; for with only my stick in my hand I went across Jordan, and now I have become two armies.

¹¹Be my saviour from the hand of Esau, my brother: for my fear is that he will make an attack on me, putting to death mother and child.

¹²And you said, Truly, I will be good to you, and make your seed like the sand of the sea which may not be numbered.

¹³Then he put up his tent there for the night; and from among his goods he took, as an offering for his brother Esau,

¹⁴Two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats, two hundred females and twenty males from the sheep,

¹⁵Thirty camels with their young ones, forty cows, ten oxen, twenty asses, and ten young asses.

¹⁶These he gave to his servants, every herd by itself, and he said to his servants, Go on before me, and let there be a space between one herd and another.

¹⁷And he gave orders to the first, saying, When my brother Esau comes to you and says, Whose servant are you, and where are you going, and whose are these herds?

¹⁸Then say to him, These are your servant Jacob's; they are an offering for my lord, for Esau; and he himself is coming after us.

¹⁹And he gave the same orders to the second and the third and to all those who were with the herds, saying, This is what you are to say to Esau when you see him;

²⁰And you are to say further, Jacob, your servant, is coming after us. For he said to himself, I will take away his wrath by the offering which I have sent on, and then I will come before him: it may be that I will have grace in his eyes.

²¹So the servants with the offerings went on in front, and he himself took his rest that night in the tents with his people.

²²And in the night he got up, and taking with him his two wives and the two servant-women and his eleven children, he went over the river Jabbok.

²³He took them and sent them over the stream with all he had.

²⁴Then Jacob was by himself; and a man was fighting with him till dawn.

²⁵But when the man saw that he was not able to overcome Jacob, he gave him a blow in the hollow part of his leg, so that his leg was damaged.

²⁶And he said to him, Let me go now, for the dawn is near. But Jacob said, I will not let you go till you have given me your blessing.

²⁷Then he said, What is your name? And he said, Jacob.

²⁸And he said, Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel: for in your fight with God and with men you have overcome.

²⁹Then Jacob said, What is your name? And he said, What is my name to you? Then he gave him a blessing.

³⁰And Jacob gave that place the name of Peniel, saying, I have seen God face to face, and still I am living.

³¹And while he was going past Peniel, the sun came up. And he went with unequal steps because of his damaged leg.

³²For this reason the children of Israel, even today, never take that muscle in the hollow of the leg as food, because the hollow of Jacob's leg was touched.

Genesis 33

¹Then Jacob, lifting up his eyes, saw Esau coming with his four hundred men. So he made a division of the children between Leah and Rachel and the two women-servants.

²He put the servants and their children in front, Leah and her children after them, and Rachel and Joseph at the back.

³And he himself, going before them, went down on his face to the earth seven times till he came near his brother.

⁴Then Esau came running up to him, and folding him in his arms, gave him a kiss: and the two of them were overcome with weeping.

⁵Then Esau, lifting up his eyes, saw the women and the children, and said, Who are these with you? And he said, The children whom God in his mercy has given to your servant.

⁶Then the servants and their children came near, and went down on their faces.

⁷And Leah came near with her children, and then Joseph and Rachel, and they did the same.

⁸And he said, What were all those herds which I saw on the way? And Jacob said, They were an offering so that I might have grace in my lord's eyes.

⁹But Esau said, I have enough; keep what is yours, my brother, for yourself.

¹⁰And Jacob said, Not so; but if I have grace in your eyes, take them as a sign of my love, for I have seen your face as one may see the face of God, and you have been pleased with me.

¹¹Take my offering then, with my blessing; for God has been very good to me and I have enough: so at his strong request, he took it.

¹²And he said, Let us go on our journey together, and I will go in front.

¹³But Jacob said, My lord may see that the children are only small, and there are young ones in my flocks and herds: one day's over-driving will be the destruction of all the flock.

¹⁴Do you, my lord, go on before your servant; I will come on slowly, at the rate at which the cattle and the children are able to go, till I come to my lord at Seir.

¹⁵And Esau said, Then keep some of my men with you. And he said, What need is there for that, if my lord is pleased with me?

¹⁶So Esau, turning back that day, went on his way to Seir.

¹⁷And Jacob went on to Succoth, where he made a house for himself and put up tents for his cattle: for this reason the place was named Succoth.

¹⁸So Jacob came safely from Paddan-aram to the town of Shechem in the land of Canaan, and put up his tents near the town.

¹⁹And for a hundred bits of money he got from the children of Hamor, the builder of Shechem, the field in which he had put up his tents.

²⁰And there he put up an altar, naming it El, the God of Israel.

Genesis 34

¹Now Dinah, the daughter whom Leah had by Jacob, went out to see the women of that country.

²And when Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite who was the chief of that land, saw her, he took her by force and had connection with her.

³Then his heart went out in love to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and he said comforting words to her.

⁴And Shechem said to Hamor, his father, Get me this girl for my wife.

⁵Now Jacob had word of what Shechem had done to his daughter; but his sons were in the fields with the cattle, and Jacob said nothing till they came.

⁶Then Hamor, the father of Shechem, came out to have a talk with Jacob.

⁷Now the sons of Jacob came in from the fields when they had news of it, and they were wounded and very angry because of the shame he had done in Israel by having connection with Jacob's daughter; and they said, Such a thing is not to be done.

⁸But Hamor said to them, Shechem, my son, is full of desire for your daughter: will you then give her to him for a wife?

⁹And let our two peoples be joined together; give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves.

¹⁰Go on living with us, and the country will be open to you; do trade and get property there.

¹¹And Shechem said to her father and her brothers, If you will give ear to my request, whatever you say I will give to you.

¹²However great you make the bride-price and payment, I will give it; only let me have the girl for my wife.

¹³But the sons of Jacob gave a false answer to Shechem and Hamor his father, because of what had been done to Dinah their sister.

¹⁴And they said, It is not possible for us to give our sister to one who is without circumcision, for that would be a cause of shame to us:

¹⁵But on this condition only will we come to an agreement with you: if every male among you becomes like us and undergoes circumcision;

¹⁶Then we will give our daughters to you and take your daughters to us and go on living with you as one people.

¹⁷But if you will not undergo circumcision as we say, then we will take our daughter and go.

¹⁸And their words were pleasing to Hamor and his son Shechem.

¹⁹And without loss of time the young man did as they said, because he had delight in Jacob's daughter, and he was the noblest of his father's house.

²⁰Then Hamor and Shechem, his son, went to the meeting-place of their town, and said to the men of the town,

²¹It is the desire of these men to be at peace with us; let them then go on living in this country and doing trade here, for the country is wide open before them; let us take their daughters as wives and let us give them our daughters.

²²But these men will make an agreement with us to go on living with us and to become one people, only on the condition that every male among us undergoes circumcision as they have done.

²³Then will not their cattle and their goods and all their beasts be ours? so let us come to an agreement with them so that they may go on living with us.

²⁴Then all the men of the town gave ear to the words of Hamor and Shechem his son; and every male in the town underwent circumcision.

²⁵But on the third day after, before the wounds were well, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and came into the town by surprise and put all the males to death.

²⁶And Hamor and his son they put to death with the sword, and they took Dinah from Shechem's house and went away.

²⁷And the sons of Jacob came on them when they were wounded and made waste the town because of what had been done to their sister;

²⁸They took their flocks and their herds and their asses and everything in their town and in their fields,

²⁹And all their wealth and all their little ones and their wives; everything in their houses they took and made them waste.

³⁰And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, You have made trouble for me and given me a bad name among the people of this country, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and because we are small in number they will come together against me and make war on me; and it will be the end of me and all my people.

³¹But they said, Were we to let him make use of our sister as a loose woman?

Genesis 35

¹And God said to Jacob, Go up now to Beth-el and make your living-place there: and put up an altar there to the God who came to you when you were in flight from your brother Esau.

²Then Jacob said to all his people, Put away the strange gods which are among you, and make yourselves clean, and put on a change of clothing:

³And let us go up to Beth-el: and there I will make an altar to God, who gave me an answer in the day of my trouble, and was with me wherever I went.

⁴Then they gave to Jacob all the strange gods which they had, and the rings which were in their ears; and Jacob put them away under the holy tree at Shechem.

⁵So they went on their journey: and the fear of God was on the towns round about, so that they made no attack on the sons of Jacob.

⁶And Jacob came to Luz in the land of Canaan (which is the same as Beth-el), he and all his people.

⁷And there he made an altar, naming the place El-beth-el: because it was there he had the vision of God when he was in flight from his brother.

⁸And Deborah, the servant who had taken care of Rebekah from her birth, came to her end, and was put to rest near Beth-el, under the holy tree: and they gave it the name of Allon-bacuth.

⁹Now when Jacob was on his way from Paddan-aram, God came to him again and, blessing him, said,

¹⁰Jacob is your name, but it will be so no longer; from now your name will be Israel; so he was named Israel.

¹¹And God said to him, I am God, the Ruler of all: be fertile, and have increase; a nation, truly a group of nations, will come from you, and kings will be your offspring;

¹²And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to you; and to your seed after you I will give the land.

¹³Then God went up from him in the place where he had been talking with him.

¹⁴And Jacob put up a pillar in the place where he had been talking with God, and put a drink offering on it, and oil.

¹⁵And he gave to the place where God had been talking with him, the name of Beth-el.

¹⁶So they went on from Beth-el; and while they were still some distance from Ephrath, the pains of birth came on Rachel and she had a hard time.

¹⁷And when her pain was very great, the woman who was helping her said, Have no fear; for now you will have another son.

¹⁸And in the hour when her life went from her (for death came to her), she gave the child the name Ben-oni: but his father gave him the name of Benjamin.

¹⁹So Rachel came to her end and was put to rest on the road to Ephrath (which is Beth-lehem).

²⁰And Jacob put up a pillar on her resting-place; which is named, The Pillar of the resting-place of Rachel, to this day.

²¹And Israel went journeying on and put up his tents on the other side of the tower of the flock.

²²Now while they were living in that country, Reuben had connection with Bilhah, his father's servant-woman: and Israel had news of it.

²³Now Jacob had twelve sons: the sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob's first son, and Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Zebulun;

²⁴The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin;

²⁵The sons of Bilhah, Rachel's servant: Dan and Naphtali;

²⁶The sons of Zilpah, Leah's servant: Gad and Asher; these are the sons whom Jacob had in Paddan-aram.

²⁷And Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, at Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac had been living.

²⁸And Isaac was a hundred and eighty years old.

²⁹Then Isaac came to his end and was put to rest with his father's people, an old man after a long life: and Jacob and Esau, his sons, put him in his last resting-place.