Beginning

Isaac blesses Jacob

27 Isaac became old. He could not see anything because his eyes were weak. He called for his older son, Esau. Isaac said, ‘My son.’ Esau replied, ‘Yes, I am here.’ ² Isaac said, ‘I am an old man. I may die very soon. ³ Get your bow and your arrows.^[a] Go out into the country and kill some wild animals for me. ⁴ Then prepare the food that I like to eat. Bring it to me so that I can eat it. Then I will give you my blessing before I die.’^[b]

⁵ Rebekah listened to what Isaac said to Esau. She waited until Esau went out to the country to kill an animal and bring back the meat. ⁶ Then she said to Jacob, ‘I heard your father say this to Esau: ⁷ “Bring me some meat and prepare the food that I like to eat. When I have eaten it, I will give you my blessing. I will bless you in front of the Lord before I die.”  ⁸ Now my son, listen carefully and do as I tell you. ⁹ Go out to the animals and bring two goats to me. They must be very good young goats. Then I will prepare some food that your father likes to eat. I will cook the meat in the way that he likes. ¹⁰ Then take the food to your father. When he has eaten it, he will give you his blessing before he dies.’

¹¹ Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, ‘That will be difficult. Hair covers my brother's skin. But my skin does not have any hair. ¹² My father may touch me. Then he will know that I am deceiving him. He will not bless me. He will curse me instead.’ ¹³ Jacob's mother said, ‘My son, the curse will happen to me, not you. Do what I say. Go and get the things that I told you.’

¹⁴ Jacob went and he got the goats. He brought them to his mother. She prepared some food in the way that Isaac liked to eat. ¹⁵ Then Rebekah took some of Esau's best clothes that were in her house. She put them on Jacob, her younger son. ¹⁶ She covered Jacob's hands with the skin from the goats. She also covered the part of his neck that had no hair. ¹⁷ Then she gave to Jacob the food that Isaac liked to eat. And she gave him some bread that she had made.

¹⁸ Jacob went to his father. He said, ‘My father.’ Isaac replied ‘Yes, my son. Who are you, Esau or Jacob?’ ¹⁹ Jacob said, ‘I am Esau. I am your firstborn son. I have done as you told me. Please sit up. Eat some of the meat from the wild animal that I killed. Then you can bless me.’ ²⁰ Isaac asked his son, ‘My son, how did you find it so quickly?’ Jacob replied, ‘The Lord your God helped me find it.’^[c]

²¹ Isaac said to Jacob, ‘Come near to me so that I can touch you, my son. Then I will know if you really are my son Esau.’

²² Jacob went near to his father. Isaac touched him and he said, ‘The voice is Jacob's voice. But the hands are Esau's hands.’ ²³ Isaac did not know that it was Jacob because he could feel the hair on Jacob's hands. They felt like Esau's hands. So Isaac blessed Jacob.

²⁴ Isaac asked again, ‘Are you really my son Esau?’ Jacob replied, ‘I am.’ ²⁵ Isaac said, ‘My son, bring me some of your meat. I will eat it. Then I will bless you.’ So Jacob brought the food to him and Isaac ate it. Jacob also brought some wine and Isaac drank it.

²⁶ Then Isaac said, ‘Come here my son and kiss me.’ ²⁷ So Jacob went to Isaac and kissed him. Isaac smelled the clothes that Jacob wore. Then Isaac blessed him. He said,

³⁰ When Isaac had blessed Jacob, Jacob left him. Just then, Esau came back from the country where he had killed an animal. ³¹ He prepared nice food that Isaac liked to eat. Then he took the food to his father, Isaac. Esau said, ‘My father, please sit up. Eat some of the meat from the wild animal that I have killed. Then you can bless me.’

³² His father Isaac asked, ‘Who are you?’ Esau replied, ‘I am your firstborn son, Esau.’ ³³ Isaac's body shook very much. He asked, ‘Who was it who killed an animal and brought the meat to me? Just before you came, I ate all of it. And then I blessed him. And God will certainly bless him!’^[f]

³⁴ Esau heard what his father had said and he cried aloud. He was very upset. He said, ‘My father, please bless me too!’ ³⁵ But Isaac said, ‘Your brother came to me. He deceived me and he took your blessing away from you.’ ³⁶ Esau said, ‘Yes, “Jacob” is the right name for him. He has cheated me twice. First he took my birthright. Now he has taken my blessing as well!’ Then Esau asked his father, ‘You must still have some blessing left for me, don't you?’^[g]

³⁷ Isaac replied, ‘I have made Jacob master over you. All his relatives will become his servants. I have given him crops and wine. So what can I still do to bless you, my son?’^[h]

³⁸ Esau said, ‘My father, you surely have one blessing left for me. Please bless me too!’ Then Esau wept loudly.

³⁹ Isaac replied,

⁴¹ Because Isaac had blessed Jacob, Esau hated his younger brother Jacob. Esau said quietly, ‘My father will die soon. When we have buried his body, I will kill my brother.’ ⁴² Someone told Rebekah what her older son, Esau, had said. So she told her younger son, Jacob, to come to her. She said to him, ‘Your brother Esau wants to kill you, because of what you did to him. ⁴³ Now my son, do what I tell you. Quickly go away from here. Go to my brother Laban who lives in Haran. ⁴⁴ Live with him for a time. Stay there until your brother is not angry with you any longer. ⁴⁵ He may forget what you did to him. Then I will send a message to you, so that you can come back from Haran. I do not want to lose both of my sons in one day.’^[j]

⁴⁶ Then Rebekah said to Isaac, ‘I do not like living in the same place as Esau's wives. It makes me very upset, because they are Hittites. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women who live in this land, I will be very sad. I would rather die!’^[k]

Jacob and Esau

28 Isaac called Jacob to come to him. He blessed Jacob. He told him, ‘Do not marry a Canaanite woman. ² Go now to Paddan Aram. Go to the house of your mother's father, Bethuel. Find a wife for yourself from there. Choose one of the daughters of your mother's brother, Laban. ³ I pray that God Almighty will bless you. I pray that he will give you many children, so that your descendants become a large nation of people. ⁴ May God bless you and your descendants with the good things that he promised to Abraham. The land that he promised to give to Abraham will then belong to you. That is the land where you now live as a foreign person.’

⁵ Isaac sent Jacob away and Jacob went to Paddan Aram. He went to stay with Laban, who was the son of Bethuel, the Aramean. Laban was the brother of Rebekah. Rebekah was the mother of Jacob and Esau.

⁶ Esau heard that Isaac had blessed Jacob and then sent him away to Paddan Aram. Isaac had told Jacob to find a woman from Paddan Aram that he would marry. Isaac had said to Jacob, ‘Do not marry a Canaanite woman.’ ⁷ Esau saw that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother, and that he had gone to Paddan Aram. ⁸ So Esau then understood that his father, Isaac, did not like the Canaanite women. ⁹ So Esau went to visit Abraham's son, Ishmael. He married Ishmael's daughter, Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth. When Esau married Mahalath, he kept his Canaanite wives as well.

Jacob's journey

¹⁰ Jacob left Beersheba and he went towards Haran. ¹¹ He came to a place where he stayed for the night, because the sun had gone down. He took a stone and he put it under his head. Then he lay down and he went to sleep. ¹² He had a dream. In the dream, he saw some steps. The steps went up from the earth into heaven. God's angels were going up and down the steps.

¹³ The Lord stood at the top of the steps. He said, ‘I am the Lord. I am the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of Isaac, your father. I will give the land that you are lying on to you and to your descendants. ¹⁴ Your descendants will be as many as the dust of the earth. They will go to the west and to the east. They will go to the north and to the south. Through you and your descendants I will bless all the families of people on the earth.^{[l] 15} I am with you. I will take care of you wherever you go. I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised to do for you.’

¹⁶ Jacob woke from his sleep. He thought, ‘The Lord is in this place and I did not know it.’ ¹⁷ Jacob was afraid. He said, ‘How great this place is! This must be the house of God. This is the gate of heaven.’

¹⁸ Early in the morning Jacob got up. He took the stone that he had put under his head. He made it stand up straight in the ground. He poured oil on top of it.^[m]

¹⁹ Jacob called that place Bethel.^[n] Before that, the name of the place had been Luz.

²⁰ Then Jacob made a promise to God. He said, ‘While I am on this journey, I want God to be with me and to take care of me. I want him to give me food to eat and clothes to wear. ²¹ Then I want to return to my father's house. If God keeps me safe, then the Lord will be my God. ²² This special stone that I have put here will be God's house. And from everything that God gives me, I will give God one tenth.’

Jacob and Laban

29 Jacob continued on his journey. He came to the land where the people from the east live. ² He saw a well in a field. Three groups of sheep lay near it. Shepherds took water from the well to give to their sheep. There was a large stone that covered the top of the well. ³ The shepherds waited until all the sheep were there together. Then they removed the stone from the top of the well. They gave their sheep water to drink, and then they put the stone back on the top of the well.

⁴ Jacob asked the shepherds, ‘My brothers, where are you from?’ The shepherds replied, ‘We are from Haran.’ ⁵ Jacob said, ‘Do you know Laban? He is Nahor's grandson.’ The shepherds replied, ‘Yes, we know him.’ ⁶ Jacob asked them, ‘Is he in good health?’ They replied, ‘Yes, he is. Look. Here comes his daughter now, with their sheep. Her name is Rachel.’ ⁷ Jacob said to them, ‘The sun is still high in the sky. It is not yet the right time to bring all the sheep together. So give them some water now. Then they can go back to the fields and eat more grass.’ ⁸ The shepherds said, ‘We cannot do that. We have to wait until all the sheep are here together. Then we can remove the big stone from the well and we can give water to the sheep.’

⁹ When Jacob was speaking to the shepherds, Rachel arrived there. She brought her father's sheep with her. She was taking care of them.

¹⁰ Jacob saw Rachel. She was the daughter of his uncle Laban. Jacob saw that she had Laban's sheep with her. So Jacob went to the well and he removed the big stone. Then he gave water to Laban's sheep. ¹¹ Then Jacob kissed Rachel. He began to weep loudly.^[o]

¹² Jacob told Rachel that he was a relative of her father, Laban. He told her that he was Rebekah's son. So Rachel ran home to tell her father.

¹³ When Laban heard what Rachel said, he went quickly to meet Jacob, his sister's son. He put his arms round Jacob and he kissed him. Laban brought Jacob to his home. Jacob told Laban all his news. ¹⁴ Then Laban said, ‘Yes, you really are my own relative.’ So Jacob stayed with Laban for a month.

¹⁵ Then Laban said to Jacob, ‘You should not work for me for nothing because you are my relative. Tell me what I should pay you.’ ¹⁶ Laban had two daughters. The name of the older daughter was Leah. The name of the younger daughter was Rachel. ¹⁷ Leah had weak eyes. But Rachel's face and her body were beautiful. ¹⁸ Jacob loved Rachel. He said to Laban, ‘I will work for you for seven years. In return, I want to marry your younger daughter, Rachel.’ ¹⁹ Laban said, ‘It is better for you to marry her than another man. Stay here with me.’

²⁰ Jacob worked for seven years to have Rachel as his wife. But the years passed very quickly because Jacob loved Rachel very much. Seven years seemed like only a few days to Jacob.

Jacob marries Leah and Rachel

²¹ After seven years, Jacob said to Laban, ‘Give me my wife. My time to work for you is finished and I want to marry her.’ ²² Laban called all the people in that place to come together. He prepared a big meal for them to eat. ²³ When evening came, Laban took his daughter Leah and he gave her to Jacob. Jacob slept that night with her as his wife. ²⁴ Laban gave his female servant to Leah to be her servant. Her name was Zilpah.

²⁵ When morning came, Jacob saw that he had slept with Leah! He said to Laban, ‘You have done a very bad thing to me! I worked for you to get Rachel as my wife. Why have you deceived me?’ ²⁶ Laban replied, ‘In our land, we do not give the younger daughter to a man first. We let the older daughter marry first. ²⁷ So finish this week of Leah's marriage. Then we will give you Rachel to marry too. But you must work for another seven years.’^[p]

²⁸ So Jacob did what Laban said. He finished the marriage week with Leah. Then Laban gave Rachel to Jacob to be his wife. ²⁹ Laban gave his female servant Bilhah to Rachel to become her servant. ³⁰ Jacob also slept with Rachel. He loved Rachel more than he loved Leah. He worked for Laban for seven more years.

³¹ The Lord saw that Jacob did not love Leah. So he let her become pregnant. But Rachel did not give birth to any children. ³² Leah became pregnant and she gave birth to a son. She called him Reuben. She said, ‘It is because the Lord has seen how sad I am. My husband will love me now because I have given birth to a son.’

³³ Leah became pregnant again. She gave birth to another son. She said, ‘The Lord has given me another son because he knows that I am not loved.’ She called this son Simeon.

³⁴ Leah became pregnant again. Later, she gave birth to another son. She said, ‘Now I have given my husband three sons, so he will want to stay with me.’ She called this son Levi.

³⁵ Leah became pregnant again. She gave birth to another son. She said, ‘This time I will praise the Lord.’ She called this son Judah. Then she stopped giving birth to children.