Old/New Testament
Chapter 33
Jacob and Esau Meet.[a] 1 Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming, and with him four hundred men. So he divided his children among Leah, Rachel, and the two maidservants, 2 putting the maidservants and their children first, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last. 3 He himself went on ahead of them, bowing to the ground seven times, until he reached his brother. 4 Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, and flinging himself on his neck, kissed him as he wept.
5 Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children and asked, “Who are these with you?” Jacob answered, “They are the children with whom God has graciously favored your servant.” 6 Then the maidservants and their children came forward and bowed low; 7 next, Leah and her children came forward and bowed low; lastly, Joseph and Rachel came forward and bowed low. 8 Then Esau asked, “What did you intend with all those herds that I encountered?” Jacob answered, “It was to gain my lord’s favor.” 9 Esau replied, “I have plenty; my brother, you should keep what is yours.” 10 “No, I beg you!” said Jacob. “If you will do me the favor, accept this gift from me, since to see your face is for me like seeing the face of God—and you have received me so kindly. 11 Accept the gift I have brought you. For God has been generous toward me, and I have an abundance.” Since he urged him strongly, Esau accepted.
12 Then Esau said, “Let us break camp and be on our way; I will travel in front of you.” 13 But Jacob replied: “As my lord knows, the children are too young. And the flocks and herds that are nursing are a concern to me; if overdriven for even a single day, the whole flock will die. 14 Let my lord, then, go before his servant, while I proceed more slowly at the pace of the livestock before me and at the pace of my children, until I join my lord in Seir.” 15 Esau replied, “Let me at least put at your disposal some of the people who are with me.” But Jacob said, “Why is this that I am treated so kindly, my lord?” 16 So on that day Esau went on his way back to Seir, 17 and Jacob broke camp for Succoth.[b] There Jacob built a home for himself and made booths for his livestock. That is why the place was named Succoth.
18 Jacob arrived safely at the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan-aram. He encamped in sight of the city.(A) 19 The plot of ground on which he had pitched his tent he bought for a hundred pieces of money[c] from the descendants of Hamor, the father of Shechem.(B) 20 He set up an altar there and invoked “El, the God of Israel.”(C)
Chapter 34
The Rape of Dinah. 1 [d]Dinah, the daughter whom Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit some of the women of the land. 2 When Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite,[e] the leader of the region, saw her, he seized her and lay with her by force. 3 He was strongly attracted to Dinah, daughter of Jacob, and was in love with the young woman. So he spoke affectionately to her. 4 Shechem said to his father Hamor, “Get me this young woman for a wife.”
5 Meanwhile, Jacob heard that Shechem had defiled his daughter Dinah; but since his sons were out in the field with his livestock, Jacob kept quiet until they came home. 6 Now Hamor, the father of Shechem, went out to discuss the matter with Jacob, 7 just as Jacob’s sons were coming in from the field. When they heard the news, the men were indignant and extremely angry. Shechem had committed an outrage in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter; such a thing is not done.(D) 8 Hamor appealed to them, saying: “My son Shechem has his heart set on your daughter. Please give her to him as a wife. 9 Intermarry with us; give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves. 10 Thus you can live among us. The land is open before you. Settle and move about freely in it and acquire holdings here.”[f] 11 Then Shechem appealed to Dinah’s father and brothers: “Do me this favor, and whatever you ask from me, I will give. 12 No matter how high you set the bridal price and gift, I will give you whatever you ask from me; only give me the young woman as a wife.”
Revenge of Jacob’s Sons. 13 Jacob’s sons replied to Shechem and his father Hamor with guile, speaking as they did because he had defiled their sister Dinah. 14 They said to them, “We are not able to do this thing: to give our sister to an uncircumcised man. For that would be a disgrace for us. 15 Only on this condition will we agree to that: that you become like us by having every male among you circumcised. 16 Then we will give you our daughters and take your daughters in marriage; we will settle among you and become one people. 17 But if you do not listen to us and be circumcised, we will take our daughter and go.”
18 Their proposal pleased Hamor and his son Shechem. 19 The young man lost no time in acting on the proposal, since he wanted Jacob’s daughter. Now he was more highly regarded than anyone else in his father’s house. 20 So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city and said to the men of their city: 21 “These men are friendly toward us. Let them settle in the land and move about in it freely; there is ample room in the land for them. We can take their daughters in marriage and give our daughters to them. 22 But only on this condition will the men agree to live with us and form one people with us: that every male among us be circumcised as they themselves are. 23 Would not their livestock, their property, and all their animals then be ours? Let us just agree with them, so that they will settle among us.”
24 All who went out of the gate of the city listened to Hamor and his son Shechem, and all the males, all those who went out of the gate of the city,[g] were circumcised. 25 On the third day, while they were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, brothers of Dinah, each took his sword, advanced against the unsuspecting city and massacred all the males.(E) 26 After they had killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword, they took Dinah from Shechem’s house and left.(F) 27 Then the other sons of Jacob followed up the slaughter and sacked the city because their sister had been defiled. 28 They took their sheep, cattle and donkeys, whatever was in the city and in the surrounding country. 29 They carried off all their wealth, their children, and their women, and looted whatever was in the houses.(G)
30 Jacob said to Simeon and Levi: “You have brought trouble upon me by making me repugnant to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I have so few men that, if these people unite against me and attack me, I and my household will be wiped out.” 31 But they retorted, “Should our sister be treated like a prostitute?”
Chapter 35
Bethel Revisited. 1 [h]God said to Jacob: Go up now to Bethel. Settle there and build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.(H) 2 So Jacob told his household and all who were with him: “Get rid of the foreign gods[i] among you; then purify yourselves and change your clothes. 3 Let us now go up to Bethel so that I might build an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.” 4 They gave Jacob all the foreign gods in their possession and also the rings they had in their ears[j] and Jacob buried them under the oak that is near Shechem. 5 Then, as they set out, a great terror fell upon the surrounding towns, so that no one pursued the sons of Jacob.
6 Thus Jacob and all the people who were with him arrived in Luz (now Bethel) in the land of Canaan.(I) 7 There he built an altar and called the place El-Bethel,[k] for it was there that God had revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.(J)
8 Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died. She was buried under the oak below Bethel, and so it was named Allon-bacuth.[l]
9 On Jacob’s arrival from Paddan-aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him. 10 God said to him:
Your name is Jacob.
You will no longer be named Jacob,
but Israel will be your name.(K)
So he was named Israel. 11 Then God said to him: I am God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply. A nation, indeed an assembly of nations, will stem from you, and kings will issue from your loins. 12 The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you; and to your descendants after you I will give the land.(L)
13 Then God departed from him. 14 In the place where God had spoken with him, Jacob set up a sacred pillar, a stone pillar, and upon it he made a libation and poured out oil.(M) 15 Jacob named the place where God spoke to him Bethel.
Jacob’s Family. 16 Then they departed from Bethel; but while they still had some distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel went into labor and suffered great distress. 17 When her labor was most intense, the midwife said to her, “Do not fear, for now you have another son.” 18 With her last breath—for she was at the point of death—she named him Ben-oni;[m] but his father named him Benjamin. 19 Thus Rachel died; and she was buried on the road to Ephrath (now Bethlehem).[n](N) 20 Jacob set up a sacred pillar on her grave, and the same pillar marks Rachel’s grave to this day.
21 Israel moved on and pitched his tent beyond Migdal-eder. 22 While Israel was encamped in that region, Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine. When Israel heard of it, he was greatly offended.[o](O)
The sons of Jacob were now twelve. 23 The sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun; 24 [p]the sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin; 25 the sons of Rachel’s maidservant Bilhah: Dan and Naphtali; 26 the sons of Leah’s maidservant Zilpah: Gad and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram.
27 Jacob went home to his father Isaac at Mamre, in Kiriath-arba (now Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had resided. 28 The length of Isaac’s life was one hundred and eighty years; 29 then he breathed his last. He died as an old man and was gathered to his people. After a full life, his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.
Chapter 10
The Mission of the Twelve. 1 [a]Then he summoned his twelve disciples[b] and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness.(A) 2 The names of the twelve apostles[c] are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; 4 Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.
The Commissioning of the Twelve. 5 (B)Jesus sent out these twelve[d] after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. 6 (C)Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’(D) 8 [e]Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give. 9 (E)Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts; 10 (F)no sack for the journey, or a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick. The laborer deserves his keep. 11 (G)Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it, and stay there until you leave. 12 As you enter a house, wish it peace. 13 If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you.[f] 14 [g](H)Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words—go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet. 15 Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.(I)
Coming Persecutions. 16 (J)“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves. 17 [h]But beware of people,(K) for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues,(L) 18 and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans. 19 When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say.(M) 20 For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.