Old/New Testament

Jacob Meets Esau

33 Then Jacob glanced up and saw, behold, there was Esau coming—and 400 men with him. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel and the two female servants. ² He put the female servants and their children first, then Leah and her children behind them, then Rachel and Joseph behind them. ³ But he himself passed on ahead of them, and bowed to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother.

⁴ But Esau ran to meet him, hugged him, fell on his neck and kissed him—and they wept. ⁵ His eyes glanced up and he saw the women and the children, and said, “Who are these with you?”

“The children whom God has graciously given your servant,” he said. ⁶ Then the female servants approached, they and their children, and bowed down. ⁷ Leah also approached, along with her children, and they bowed down, and finally, Joseph and Rachel approached and bowed down.

⁸ “What do you mean by this whole caravan that I’ve met?”

So he said, “To find favor in your eyes, my lord.”

⁹ But Esau said, “I have plenty! O my brother, do keep all that belongs to you.”

¹⁰ Yet Jacob said, “No, please! If I have found favor in your eyes, then you will take my offering from my hand. For this is the reason I’ve seen your face—it is like seeing the face of God—and you’ve accepted me! ¹¹ Please, take my blessing that was brought to you, because God has been gracious to me, and because I have everything.” So he kept urging him until he accepted.

¹² Then he said, “Let’s journey and be on our way, and I’ll go ahead of you. ¹³ He continued, “My lord knows that the children are tender, and that the flocks and the cattle in my care are nursing. So if they were pushed hard just one day, all the flocks would die. ¹⁴ Please, let my lord pass on ahead of your servant, and I’ll move on further gradually, at a pace suited to the livestock that are before me and at a pace suited to the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.”

¹⁵ Then Esau said, “Please let me leave with you some of the people who are with me.”

But he said, “What’s this? Let me find favor in my lord’s eyes.”

¹⁶ So on that day Esau returned on his way to Seir, ¹⁷ but Jacob journeyed to Sukkot and built a house for himself, and for his livestock he made booths. That is the reason that place is called Sukkot.

¹⁸ So Jacob arrived in shalom to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan-aram, and camped right in front of the city. ¹⁹ He purchased the portion of the field there where he had pitched his tent from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for 100 pieces of money. ²⁰ There he set up an altar, and he called it, El is Israel’s God.

Dinah Defiled by Shechem

34 Now Dinah, Leah’s daughter whom she bore for Jacob, went out to look at the daughters of the land. ² When Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he took her and lay with her and raped her. ³ But his soul clung to Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, and he loved the young woman and spoke reassuringly to the young woman. ⁴ So Shechem said to his father Hamor saying, “Get me this girl for a wife.”

⁵ Now Jacob had heard that he had defiled his daughter Dinah while his sons were with his livestock in the field, so Jacob kept quiet until they came in. ⁶ Meanwhile Shechem’s father Hamor went out to Jacob in order to speak with him. ⁷ Jacob’s sons had already come in from the field when they heard, and the men were deeply grieved and furious, because he had committed a vile deed in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, which ought never to be done.

⁸ But Hamor spoke with them saying, “My son Shechem—he’s very attached to your daughter. Please give her to him for a wife. ⁹ Intermarry with us. You can give your daughters to us, and you can take our daughters for yourselves. ¹⁰ You can live with us, and the land will be open to you: live in it, move about freely in it, and settle down in it.”

¹¹ Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, “Would that I find favor in your eyes! Whatever you say to me I’ll give. ¹² Set the dowry and the presents as high as you like and I’ll give whatever you say to me. But give me the young woman as a wife.”

¹³ But Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully as they spoke, because he had defiled their sister Dinah. ¹⁴ They said to them, “We can’t do this thing—give our sister to a man who is uncircumcised—for this is a disgrace to us. ¹⁵ Only by this will we consent to you: if you will become like us, by circumcising every male. ¹⁶ Then we’ll give you our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves, and live with you, and become one people. ¹⁷ But if you don’t listen to us and be circumcised, we’ll take our daughter and leave.”

¹⁸ Now their words seemed good to Hamor as well as Hamor’s son Shechem. ¹⁹ So the young man did not hesitate to do it, since he delighted in Jacob’s daughter. Now he was honored above everyone else in his father’s house. ²⁰ So Hamor and his son Shechem came into the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, saying: ²¹ “These men are enjoying a peaceful relationship with us and they are living in the land and moving about freely in it. As for the land, look, it’s spread out on both sides before us. We can take their daughters to be our wives, and we can give our daughters to them. ²² But by this did these men consent to us, to live with us and to become one people—when all our males are circumcised as they are circumcised. ²³ Their livestock and their possessions: won’t they be ours? Only let us consent to them so that they’ll live with us.”

²⁴ Now everyone who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor and to his son Shechem, and every male was circumcised, every one who went out the gate of his city. ²⁵ Then on the third day while they were in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and came against the city undisturbed and killed every male. ²⁶ Hamor and his son Shechem they killed with the sword, then took Dinah from Shechem’s house and left. ²⁷ Jacob’s sons came upon the slain and plundered the city because they defiled their sister. ²⁸ They took their flocks, their cattle and their donkeys, those that were in the city as well as those that were in the field. ²⁹ All their wealth, their little children, and their wives they captured and plundered, as well as everything that was in the houses.

³⁰ But Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You’ve brought trouble on me, making me a stench among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I am but a few men—they’ll gather against me and strike me—then I’ll be destroyed, my household and I.”

³¹ But they said, “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?”

Rededication at Beth-El

35 Then God said to Jacob, “Get up! Go up to Beth-El and stay there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.”

² So Jacob said to his household and to everyone who was with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you. Cleanse yourselves and change your clothes. ³ Now let’s get up and go up to Beth-El so that I can make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and has been with me in the way that I have gone.”

⁴ So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods in their hand and the rings in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak tree near Shechem. ⁵ Then they journeyed, and the terror of God was on the cities that were around them, so they did not pursue Jacob’s sons. ⁶ Then Jacob arrived at Luz in the land of Canaan (that is Beth-El), he and all the people who were with him. ⁷ He built an altar there and called the place El-Beth-El because God had revealed Himself to him there when he fled from the presence of his brother.

⁸ Then Rebekah’s nurse Deborah died, and was buried below Beth-El, under the oak—so it was named Oak of Weeping.

⁹ God appeared to Jacob again, after he returned from Paddan-aram, and He blessed him. ¹⁰ God said to him:

¹³ Then God went up from him at the place where He had spoken with him. ¹⁴ Jacob set up a memorial stone in the place where He had spoken with him—a stone pillar—and he poured a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. ¹⁵ Jacob named the place where God spoke with him Beth-El.

Rachel’s Death in Childbirth

¹⁶ Then they traveled from Beth-El, and while they were still a distance from entering Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth, but her labor was difficult. ¹⁷ While she was struggling to give birth, the midwife said to her, “Don’t be afraid, for this is also a son for you.” ¹⁸ Now as her soul was departing (for she died), she named him Ben-Oni, but his father named him Benjamin. ¹⁹ Then Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). ²⁰ Jacob set up a memorial stone over her grave. (It is the memorial stone over Rachel’s grave to this day.)

Israel Returns to Isaac

²¹ Then Israel journeyed on and set up his tent beyond the tower of Eder. ²² While Israel was living in that land, Reuben went and slept with his father’s concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard about it.

Now Jacob had twelve sons. ²³ Leah’s sons were Jacob’s firstborn Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun. ²⁴ Rachel’s sons were Joseph and Benjamin. ²⁵ The sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s female servant, were Dan and Naphtali, ²⁶ and the sons of Zilpah, Leah’s female servant, were Gad and Asher. These are Jacob’s sons, who were born to him in Paddan-aram.

²⁷ Then Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre of Kiriat-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed.

²⁸ Now Isaac’s days were 180 years. ²⁹ Then Isaac breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his peoples, old and full of days. So his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Instructions to the Twelve

10 Yeshua summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, so they could drive them out and heal every kind of disease and sickness. ² Now these are the names of the twelve emissaries: first, Simon, called Peter, and his brother Andrew; Jacob the son of Zebedee and John his brother; ³ Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; Jacob, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; ⁴ Simon the Zealot,^[a] and Judah the man from Kriot,^[b] the one who also betrayed Him.

⁵ Yeshua sent out these twelve and ordered them, “Do not go to the Gentiles, and do not enter into any Samaritan town. ⁶ But go instead to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷ As you go, proclaim, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near!’ ⁸ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with tzara’at, drive out demons. Freely you received, freely give. ⁹ Do not get gold or silver or copper for your money belts, ¹⁰ or a bag for the journey, or two shirts,^[c] or sandals, or a walking stick; for the worker is entitled to his food.

¹¹ “Whatever town or village you shall enter, find out who in it is worthy and stay there until you leave. ¹² As you come into the house, greet it. ¹³ If the household is worthy, let your shalom come upon it. But if it’s not worthy, let your shalom return to you. ¹⁴ And whoever will not receive you or listen to your words, as you leave that house or that town, shake the dust off your feet. ¹⁵ Amen, I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah^[d] on the Day of Judgment than for that town.

¹⁶ “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. ¹⁷ But beware of men, for they will hand you over to the courts and flog^[e] you in their synagogues. ¹⁸ You will be brought before governors and kings because of Me, as a witness to them and to the Gentiles. ¹⁹ But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you should say, for it shall be given to you in that hour what you should say. ²⁰ For it is not you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.