Genesis
Chapter 35
1 God told Jacob, “Get up and go to Bethel to live. There, build an altar to God who showed Himself to you when you were running away from your brother Esau.”
2 Jacob told his family and everyone with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have, make yourselves clean, and change your clothes.”
3 Let’s get up and go to Bethel. There I will build an altar to God, who helped me when I was in trouble and who has been with me wherever I have gone.
4 They gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and their earrings; Jacob buried them under the oak near Shechem.
5 They traveled, and God’s terror was on the surrounding cities, so they did not chase Jacob’s sons.
6 Jacob arrived at Luz, in Canaan, also known as Bethel, with everyone who was with him.
7 He made an altar there and named the place Elbethel, because God had shown himself to him as he was running from his brother.
8 Rebekah’s caregiver Deborah died and they buried her under an oak tree near Bethel. They named the place “Oak of Weeping.”
9 God showed Himself to Jacob again after he left Padanaram and blessed him.
10 God said to him, “Your name is Jacob. Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel will be your name.” And he named him Israel.
11 God told him, “I am God Almighty: have many children and grow into a nation and many nations will come from you, and you will have kings among your descendants.”
12 I will give you and your descendants the land I gave to Abraham and Isaac.
13 God left him at the place where he had spoken with him.
14 Jacob put up a stone pillar where he had talked with God. He poured out a drink offering on it, and also poured oil on it.
15 Jacob named the place where God spoke with him Bethel.
16 They left Bethel, and were not far from Ephrath when Rachel started to give birth, and it was difficult.
17 When she was giving birth with difficulty, the midwife told her, “Don’t be afraid; you will have another son too.”
18 As she was dying, she named her son Benoni, but his father named him Benjamin.
19 Rachel died and was buried on the road to Ephrath, now called Bethlehem.
20 Jacob put up a stone marker on her burial site; this is Rachel’s grave marker to this day.
21 Israel traveled and set up his tent past the Tower of Edar.
22 When Israel lived in that land, Reuben slept with Bilhah, his father’s partner, and Israel found out. Jacob had twelve sons.
23 Leah’s sons: Reuben, Jacob’s first son, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun.
24 Rachel’s sons are Joseph and Benjamin.
25 Bilhah, Rachel’s servant, had two sons: Dan and Naphtali.
26 Zilpah, Leah’s servant, had two sons with Jacob: Gad and Asher. They were born to Jacob in Padanaram.
27 Jacob went to his father Isaac in Mamre, to the town of Arbah, now called Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac had lived.
28 Isaac lived for 180 years.
29 Isaac passed away, died, and joined his ancestors, being very old: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.