Genesis 34-36

New Century Version

Dinah Is Attacked

34 At this time Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, went out to visit the women of the land. ² When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the ruler of the land, saw her, he took her and forced her to have sexual relations with him. ³ Shechem fell in love with Dinah, and he spoke kindly to her. ⁴ He told his father, Hamor, “Please get this girl for me so I can marry her.”

⁵ Jacob learned how Shechem had disgraced his daughter, but since his sons were out in the field with the cattle, Jacob said nothing until they came home. ⁶ While he waited, Hamor father of Shechem went to talk with Jacob.

⁷ When Jacob’s sons heard what had happened, they came in from the field. They were very angry that Shechem had done such a wicked thing to Israel. It was wrong for him to have sexual relations with Jacob’s daughter; a thing like this should not be done.

⁸ But Hamor talked to Dinah’s brothers and said, “My son Shechem is deeply in love with Dinah. Please let him marry her. ⁹ Marry our people. Give your women to our men as wives and take our women for your men as wives. ¹⁰ You can live in the same land with us. You will be free to own land and to trade here.”

¹¹ Shechem also talked to Jacob and to Dinah’s brothers and said, “Please accept my offer. I will give anything you ask. ¹² Ask as much as you want for the payment for the bride, and I will give it to you. Just let me marry Dinah.”

¹³ Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father with lies, because Shechem had disgraced their sister Dinah. ¹⁴ The brothers said to them, “We cannot allow you to marry our sister, because you are not circumcised. That would be a disgrace to us. 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, and we will live in your land and become one people. ¹⁷ If you refuse to be circumcised, we will take Dinah and leave.”

¹⁸ What they asked seemed fair to Hamor and Shechem. ¹⁹ So Shechem quickly went to be circumcised because he loved Jacob’s daughter.

Now Shechem was the most respected man in his family. ²⁰ So Hamor and Shechem went to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, saying, ²¹ “These people want to be friends with us. So let them live in our land and trade here. There is enough land for all of us. Let us marry their women, and we can let them marry our women. ²² But we must agree to one thing: All our men must be circumcised as they are. Then they will agree to live in our land, and we will be one people. ²³ If we do this, their cattle and their animals will belong to us. Let us do what they say, and they will stay in our land.” ²⁴ All the people who had come to the city gate heard this. They agreed with Hamor and Shechem, and every man was circumcised.

²⁵ Three days later the men who were circumcised were still in pain. Two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi (Dinah’s brothers), took their swords and made a surprise attack on the city, killing all the men there. ²⁶ They killed Hamor and his son Shechem and then took Dinah out of Shechem’s house and left. ²⁷ Jacob’s sons came upon the dead bodies and stole everything that was in the city, to pay them back for what Shechem had done to their sister. ²⁸ So the brothers took the flocks, herds, and donkeys, and everything in the city and in the fields. ²⁹ They took every valuable thing the people owned, even their wives and children and everything in the houses.

³⁰ Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have caused me a lot of trouble. Now the Canaanites and the Perizzites who live in the land will hate me. Since there are only a few of us, if they join together to attack us, my people and I will be destroyed.”

³¹ But the brothers said, “We will not allow our sister to be treated like a prostitute.”

Jacob in Bethel

35 God said to Jacob, “Go to the city of Bethel and live there. Make an altar to the God who appeared to you there when you were running away from your brother Esau.”

² So Jacob said to his family and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods you have, and make yourselves clean, and change your clothes. ³ We will leave here and go to Bethel. There I will build an altar to God, who has helped me during my time of trouble. He has been with me everywhere I have gone.” ⁴ So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had, and the earrings they were wearing, and he hid them under the great tree near the town of Shechem. ⁵ Then Jacob and his sons left there. But God caused the people in the nearby cities to be afraid, so they did not follow them. ⁶ And Jacob and all the people who were with him went to Luz, which is now called Bethel, in the land of Canaan. ⁷ There Jacob built an altar and named the place Bethel, after God, because God had appeared to him there when he was running from his brother.

⁸ Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died and was buried under the oak tree at Bethel, so they named that place Oak of Crying.

Jacob’s New Name

⁹ When Jacob came back from Northwest Mesopotamia, God appeared to him again and blessed him. ¹⁰ God said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but you will not be called Jacob any longer. Your new name will be Israel.” So he called him Israel. ¹¹ God said to him, “I am God Almighty. Have many children and grow in number as a nation. You will be the ancestor of many nations and kings. ¹² The same land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you and your descendants.” ¹³ Then God left him. ¹⁴ Jacob set up a stone on edge in that place where God had talked to him, and he poured a drink offering and olive oil on it to make it special for God. ¹⁵ And Jacob named the place Bethel.

Rachel Dies Giving Birth

¹⁶ Jacob and his group left Bethel. Before they came to Ephrath, Rachel began giving birth to her baby, ¹⁷ but she was having much trouble. When Rachel’s nurse saw this, she said, “Don’t be afraid, Rachel. You are giving birth to another son.” ¹⁸ Rachel gave birth to the son, but she herself died. As she lay dying, she named the boy Son of My Suffering, but Jacob called him Benjamin.^[a]

¹⁹ Rachel was buried on the road to Ephrath, a district of Bethlehem, ²⁰ and Jacob set up a rock on her grave to honor her. That rock is still there. ²¹ Then Israel^[b] continued his journey and camped just south of Migdal Eder.

²² While Israel was there, Reuben had sexual relations with Israel’s slave woman Bilhah, and Israel heard about it.

The Family of Israel

Jacob had twelve sons. ²³ He had six sons by his wife Leah: Reuben, his first son, then Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun.

²⁴ He had two sons by his wife Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.

²⁵ He had two sons by Rachel’s slave girl Bilhah: Dan and Naphtali.

²⁶ And he had two sons by Leah’s slave girl Zilpah: Gad and Asher.

These are Jacob’s sons who were born in Northwest Mesopotamia.

²⁷ Jacob went to his father Isaac at Mamre near Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac had lived. ²⁸ Isaac lived one hundred eighty years. ²⁹ So Isaac breathed his last breath and died when he was very old, and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Esau’s Family

36 This is the family history of Esau (also called Edom). ² Esau married women from the land of Canaan: Adah daughter of Elon the Hittite; and Oholibamah daughter of Anah, the son of Zibeon the Hivite; ³ and Basemath, Ishmael’s daughter, the sister of Nebaioth.

⁴ Adah gave birth to Eliphaz for Esau. Basemath gave him Reuel, ⁵ and Oholibamah gave him Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. These were Esau’s sons who were born in the land of Canaan.

⁶ Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the people who lived with him, his herds and other animals, and all the belongings he had gotten in Canaan, and he went to a land away from his brother Jacob. ⁷ Esau and Jacob’s belongings were becoming too many for them to live in the same land. The land where they had lived could not support both of them, because they had too many herds. ⁸ So Esau lived in the mountains of Edom. (Esau is also named Edom.)

⁹ This is the family history of Esau. He is the ancestor of the Edomites, who live in the mountains of Edom.

¹⁰ Esau’s sons were Eliphaz, son of Adah and Esau, and Reuel, son of Basemath and Esau.

¹¹ Eliphaz had five sons: Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz. ¹² Eliphaz also had a slave woman named Timna, and Timna and Eliphaz gave birth to Amalek. These were Esau’s grandsons by his wife Adah.

¹³ Reuel had four sons: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah. These were Esau’s grandsons by his wife Basemath.

¹⁴ Esau’s third wife was Oholibamah the daughter of Anah. (Anah was the son of Zibeon.) Esau and Oholibamah gave birth to Jeush, Jalam, and Korah.

¹⁵ These were the leaders that came from Esau: Esau’s first son was Eliphaz. From him came these leaders: Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz, ¹⁶ Korah, Gatam, and Amalek. These were the leaders that came from Eliphaz in the land of Edom. They were the grandsons of Adah.

¹⁷ Esau’s son Reuel was the father of these leaders: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah. These were the leaders that came from Reuel in the land of Edom. They were the grandsons of Esau’s wife Basemath.

¹⁸ Esau’s wife Oholibamah gave birth to these leaders: Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. These are the leaders that came from Esau’s wife Oholibamah the daughter of Anah. ¹⁹ These were the sons of Esau (also called Edom), and these were their leaders.

²⁰ These were the sons of Seir the Horite, who were living in the land: Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah, ²¹ Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan. These sons of Seir were the leaders of the Horites in Edom.

²² The sons of Lotan were Hori and Homam. (Timna was Lotan’s sister.)

²³ The sons of Shobal were Alvan, Manahath, Ebal, Shepho, and Onam.

²⁴ The sons of Zibeon were Aiah and Anah. Anah is the man who found the hot springs in the desert while he was caring for his father’s donkeys.

²⁵ The children of Anah were Dishon and Oholibamah daughter of Anah.

²⁶ The sons of Dishon were Hemdan, Eshban, Ithran, and Keran.

²⁷ The sons of Ezer were Bilhan, Zaavan, and Akan.

²⁸ The sons of Dishan were Uz and Aran.

²⁹ These were the names of the Horite leaders: Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah, ³⁰ Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan.

These men were the leaders of the Horite families who lived in the land of Edom.

³¹ These are the kings who ruled in the land of Edom before the Israelites ever had a king:

³² Bela son of Beor was the king of Edom. He came from the city of Dinhabah.

³³ When Bela died, Jobab son of Zerah became king. Jobab was from Bozrah.

³⁴ When Jobab died, Husham became king. He was from the land of the Temanites.

³⁵ When Husham died, Hadad son of Bedad, who had defeated Midian in the country of Moab, became king. Hadad was from the city of Avith.

³⁶ When Hadad died, Samlah became king. He was from Masrekah.

³⁷ When Samlah died, Shaul became king. He was from Rehoboth on the Euphrates River.

³⁸ When Shaul died, Baal-Hanan son of Acbor became king.

³⁹ When Baal-Hanan son of Acbor died, Hadad became king. He was from the city of Pau. His wife’s name was Mehetabel daughter of Matred, who was the daughter of Me-Zahab.

⁴⁰ These Edomite leaders, listed by their families and regions, came from Esau. Their names were Timna, Alvah, Jetheth, ⁴¹ Oholibamah, Elah, Pinon, ⁴² Kenaz, Teman, Mibzar, ⁴³ Magdiel, and Iram. They were the leaders of Edom. (Esau was the father of the Edomites.) The area where each of these families lived was named after that family.