There he said to them, “I can tell that your father’s attitude toward me has changed, but the God of my father has been with me.

but your father has humiliated me and changed my wages ten times. But God has not permitted him to do me any harm.

Jacob also deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was leaving.

So he took his relatives with him and pursued Jacob for seven days. He caught up with him in the hill country of Gilead.

“I left secretly because I was afraid!” Jacob replied to Laban. “I thought you might take your daughters away from me by force.

When you searched through all my goods, did you find anything that belonged to you? Set it here before my relatives and yours, and let them settle the dispute between the two of us!

If you mistreat my daughters or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no one else is with us, realize that God is witness to your actions.”

Jacob was very afraid and upset. So he divided the people who were with him into two camps, as well as the flocks, herds, and camels.

But you said, ‘I will certainly make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand on the seashore, too numerous to count.’”

He instructed the servant leading the first herd, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? Whose herds are you driving?’

He put the servants and their children in front, with Leah and her children behind them, and Rachel and Joseph behind them.

Please take my present that was brought to you, for God has been generous to me and I have all I need.” When Jacob urged him, he took it.

After he left Paddan Aram, Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem in the land of Canaan, and he camped near the city.

Then he purchased the portion of the field where he had pitched his tent; he bought it from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of money.

You can make the bride price and the gift I must bring very expensive, and I’ll give whatever you ask of me. Just give me the young woman as my wife!”

They said to them, “We cannot give our sister to a man who is not circumcised, for it would be a disgrace to us.

Then we will give you our daughters to marry, and we will take your daughters as wives for ourselves, and we will live among you and become one people.

They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword, took Dinah from Shechem’s house, and left.

They took their flocks, herds, and donkeys, as well as everything in the city and in the surrounding fields.

So Jacob told his household and all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have among you. Purify yourselves and change your clothes.