< Genesis 28 >
1 And Isaac calls to Jacob, and blesses him, and commands him, and says to him, “You must not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan;
2 rise, go to Padan-Aram, to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel, and take for yourself a wife from there, from the daughters of your mother’s brother Laban;
3 and God Almighty bless you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and you have become an assembly of peoples;
4 and He gives to you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your seed with you, to cause you to possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham.”
5 And Isaac sends Jacob away, and he goes to Padan-Aram, to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, brother of Rebekah, mother of Jacob and Esau.
6 And Esau sees that Isaac has blessed Jacob, and has sent him to Padan-Aram to take to himself from there a wife—in his blessing him that he lays a charge on him, saying, You must not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan—
7 that Jacob listens to his father and to his mother, and goes to Padan-Aram—
8 and Esau sees that the daughters of Canaan are evil in the eyes of his father Isaac,
9 and Esau goes to Ishmael, and takes Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, sister of Nebajoth, to his wives, to himself, for a wife.
10 And Jacob goes out from Beer-Sheba, and goes toward Haran,
11 and he touches at a [certain] place, and lodges there, for the sun has gone in, and he takes of the stones of the place, and makes [them] his pillows, and lies down in that place.
12 And he dreams, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and its head is touching the heavens; and behold, messengers of God are going up and coming down by it;
13 and behold, YHWH is standing on it, and He says, “I [am] YHWH, God of your father Abraham, and God of Isaac; the land on which you are lying, to you I give it, and to your seed;
14 and your seed has been as the dust of the land, and you have broken forth westward, and eastward, and northward, and southward, and all families of the ground have been blessed in you and in your seed.
15 And behold, I [am] with you, and have kept you wherever you go, and have caused you to return to this ground; for I do not leave you until I have surely done that which I have spoken to you.”
16 And Jacob awakens out of his sleep and says, “Surely YHWH is in this place, and I did not know”;
17 and he fears and says, “How fearful [is] this place; this is nothing but a house of God, and this a gate of the heavens.”
18 And Jacob rises early in the morning, and takes the stone which he has made his pillows, and makes it a standing pillar, and pours oil on its top,
19 and he calls the name of that place Bethel, [house of God, ] and yet, Luz [is] the name of the city at the first.
20 And Jacob vows a vow, saying, “Seeing God is with me, and has kept me in this way which I am going, and has given to me bread to eat, and a garment to put on—
21 when I have turned back in peace to the house of my father, and YHWH has become my God,
22 then this stone which I have made a standing pillar is a house of God, and all that You give to me—tithing I tithe to You.”
