But God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream at night and warned him, “Be careful that you neither bless nor curse Jacob.”

“If Esau attacks one camp,” he thought, “then the other camp will be able to escape.”

He entrusted them to his servants, who divided them into herds. He told his servants, “Pass over before me, and keep some distance between one herd and the next.”

So Jacob named the place Peniel, explaining, “Certainly I have seen God face to face and have survived.”

Then Shechem said to Dinah’s father and brothers, “Let me find favor in your sight, and whatever you require of me I’ll give.

All the men who assembled at the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem. Every male who assembled at the city gate was circumcised.

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.

Let us go up at once to Bethel. Then I will make an altar there to God, who responded to me in my time of distress and has been with me wherever I went.”

Jacob and all those who were with him arrived at Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan.

(Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died and was buried under the oak below Bethel; thus it was named Oak of Weeping.)

Then God said to him, “I am the sovereign God. Be fruitful and multiply! A nation – even a company of nations – will descend from you; kings will be among your descendants!

They traveled on from Bethel, and when Ephrath was still some distance away, Rachel went into labor – and her labor was hard.

When her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, “Don’t be afraid, for you are having another son.”

So Jacob came back to his father Isaac in Mamre, to Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed.

Then Isaac breathed his last and joined his ancestors. He died an old man who had lived a full life. His sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Israel said to Joseph, “Your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I will send you to them.” “I’m ready,” Joseph replied.

When Joseph reached his brothers, they stripped him of his tunic, the special tunic that he wore.

Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is there if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?

Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let’s not lay a hand on him, for after all, he is our brother, our own flesh.” His brothers agreed.

Then they brought the special tunic to their father and said, “We found this. Determine now whether it is your son’s tunic or not.”