< Genesis 28 >
1 And Isaac having called for Jacob, blessed him, and charged him, saying, You shall not take a wife of the daughters of the Chananites.
2 Rise and depart quickly into Mesopotamia, to the house of Bathuel the father of your mother, and take to yourself thence a wife of the daughters of Laban your mother's brother.
3 And may my God bless you, and increase you, and multiply you, and you shall become gatherings of nations.
4 And may he give you the blessing of my father Abraam, even to you and to your seed after you, to inherit the land of your sojourning, which God gave to Abraam.
5 So Isaac sent away Jacob, and he went into Mesopotamia to Laban the son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebecca the mother of Jacob and Esau.
6 And Esau saw that Isaac blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Mesopotamia of Syria as he blessed him, to take to himself a wife thence, and [that] he charged him, saying, You shall not take a wife of the daughters of the Chananites;
7 and [that] Jacob listened to his father and his mother, and went to Mesopotamia of Syria.
8 And Esau also having seen that the daughters of Chanaan were evil before his father Isaac,
9 Esau went to Ismael, and took Maeleth the daughter of Ismael, the son of Abraam, the sister of Nabeoth, a wife in addition to his [other] wives.
10 And Jacob went forth from the well of the oath, and departed into Charrhan.
11 And came to a certain place and slept there, for the sun had gone down; and he took [one] of the stones of the place, and put it at his head, and lay down to sleep in that place,
12 and dreamed, and behold a ladder fixed on the earth, whose top reached to heaven, and the angels of God ascended and descended on it.
13 And the Lord stood upon it, and said, I am the God of your father Abraam, and the God of Isaac; fear not, the land on which you lie, to you will I give it, and to your seed.
14 And your seed shall be as the sand of the earth; and it shall spread abroad to the sea, and the south, and the north, and to the east; and in you and in your seed shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed.
15 And behold I am with you to preserve you continually in all the way wherein you shall go; and I will bring you back to this land; for I will not desert you, until I have done all that I have said to you.
16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and said, The Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.
17 And he was afraid, and said, How fearful is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
18 And Jacob rose up in the morning, and took the stone he [had] laid there by his head, and he set it up [as] a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it.
19 And he called the name of that place, the House of God; and the name of the city before was Ulam-luz.
20 And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If the Lord God will be with me, and guard me throughout on this journey, on which I am going, and give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on,
21 and bring me back in safety to the house of my father, then shall the Lord be for a God to me.
22 And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be to me a house of God; and of all whatever you shall give me, I will tithe a tenth for you.
