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;
Then Isaac summoned Jacob, and gave him a blessing. He told him, “Do not marry a woman of the Canaan people-group.
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;
Instead, go right away to Paddan-Aram [in northwest Mesopotamia], to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel. Ask one of the daughters of your mother’s brother Laban to marry you.
3 and God Almighty bless you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and you have become an assembly of peoples;
I will pray that God Almighty will bless you, and enable you to [get married and] have many descendants, in order that they will become many people-groups.
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.”
I also will pray that he will bless you and your descendants by enabling you to possess/seize the land in which you are now living as a foreigner, the land that God promised to give to [my father] Abraham and his descendants.”
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.
So Isaac sent Jacob to Paddan-Aram, to live with Rebekah’s brother Laban, the son of Bethuel, who belonged to the Aram people-group.
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—
Esau found out that his father Isaac had blessed Jacob and then sent him to Paddan-Aram. He also found out that when he blessed Isaac, he told him, “Do not marry a woman of the Canaan people-group,”
7 that Jacob listens to his father and to his mother, and goes to Padan-Aram—
and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother, and had gone to Paddan-Aram.
8 and Esau sees that the daughters of Canaan are evil in the eyes of his father Isaac,
Esau also realized that his father Isaac did not approve of women from the Canaan people-group.
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.
Because of that, Esau went to see his uncle Ishmael, and married Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael. Mahalath was the sister of Nabaioth and the granddaughter of Abraham.
10 And Jacob goes out from Beer-Sheba, and goes toward Haran,
Meanwhile, Jacob left Beersheba and started walking along the road to 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.
When he arrived at a certain place, he stopped there, because the sun had gone down. He took one of the stones there and put it under his head to use as a pillow. Then he lay down and slept there.
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;
While he was sleeping, he had a dream, in which he [was surprised to] see a stairway. The bottom of the stairway was on the earth and the top was in the sky. Jacob also saw that God’s angels were going up and down the stairway.
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;
And he [was surprised to] see Yahweh standing at the top of the stairway, saying “I am Yahweh God, whom your grandfather Abraham worshiped, and whom Isaac worships. I will give to you and to your descendants the land on which you are lying.
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.
Your descendants will be as numerous as the particles of dirt that are on the earth, and their territory will be very large. It will extend in all directions, to the east and to the west, to the north and to the south. And people of all people-groups on earth will receive blessings because of [what happens to] you and to your descendants.
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.”
I will help you and protect you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you; I will continue to do for you all that I have promised to do.”
16 And Jacob awakens out of his sleep and says, “Surely YHWH is in this place, and I did not know”;
[During the night], when Jacob woke up from sleeping, he thought, “Surely Yahweh is in this place, and until now I was not aware of it!”
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.”
He was afraid, and he said, “This place is very awesome! This is surely the place where God lives, and this is the entrance to heaven!”
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,
In the morning Jacob got up and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up on its end to show that the place was a holy place. He poured some olive oil on top of the stone [to dedicate it to God].
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.
He named that place Bethel, [which means ‘house of God’.] Previously its name was Luz.
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—
Jacob solemnly promised God, saying, “God, if you will help me and protect me while I am taking this journey, and if you give me enough food to eat and clothes to wear,
21 when I have turned back in peace to the house of my father, and YHWH has become my God,
in order that I can later return safely to my father’s house, then you, Yahweh, will be the God that I will worship.
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.”
This stone that I have set up will mark the place where people can worship you. And I will give back to you a tenth of everything that you give to me.”
