Hands-On Bible Sampler - Flipbook - Page 60
Genesis 29 ... page 30
children. And may your descendants multiply
and become many nations! 4May God pass on to
you and your descendants the blessings he
promised to Abraham. May you own this land
where you are now living as a foreigner, for God
gave this land to Abraham.”
5 So Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to
Paddan-aram to stay with his uncle Laban,
his mother’s brother, the son of Bethuel the Aramean.
6Esau knew that his father, Isaac, had blessed
Jacob and sent him to Paddan-aram to find a wife,
and that he had warned Jacob, “You must not
marry a Canaanite woman.” 7He also knew that
Jacob had obeyed his parents and gone to
Paddan-aram. 8It was now very clear to Esau that
his father did not like the local Canaanite women.
9 So Esau visited his uncle Ishmael’s family and
married one of Ishmael’s daughters, in addition
to the wives he already had. His new wife’s name
was Mahalath. She was the sister of Nebaioth and
the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son.
Jacob’s Dream at Bethel
10Meanwhile,
Jacob left Beersheba and traveled
toward Haran. 11At sundown he arrived at a good
place to set up camp and stopped there for the
night. Jacob found a stone to rest his head
against and lay down to sleep. 12As he slept, he
dreamed of a stairway that reached from the
earth up to heaven. And he saw the angels of God
going up and down the stairway.
13At the top of the stairway stood the Lord,
and he said, “I am the Lord, the God of your
grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs
to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants. 14 Your descendants will be as numerous
as the dust of the earth! They will spread out in all
directions—to the west and the east, to the north
and the south. And all the families of the earth
will be blessed through you and your descendants. 15 What’s more, I am with you, and I will
protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring
you back to this land. I will not leave you until I
have finished giving you everything I have promised you.”
16Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said,
“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn’t even
aware of it!” 17But he was also afraid and said,
“What an awesome place this is! It is none other
than the house of God, the very gateway to
heaven!”
18The next morning Jacob got up very early.
He took the stone he had rested his head against,
and he set it upright as a memorial pillar. Then
he poured olive oil over it. 19He named that place
Bethel (which means “house of God”), although it
was previously called Luz.
20Then Jacob made this vow: “If God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey,
and if he will provide me with food and clothing,
21and if I return safely to my father’s home, then
the Lord will certainly be my God. 22And this
memorial pillar I have set up will become a place
for worshiping God, and I will present to God a
tenth of everything he gives me.”
CHAPTER
29
Jacob Arrives at Paddan-Aram
Then Jacob hurried on, finally arriving in the
land of the east. 2He saw a well in the distance.
Three flocks of sheep and goats lay in an open
field beside it, waiting to be watered. But a heavy
stone covered the mouth of the well.
3It was the custom there to wait for all the
flocks to arrive before removing the stone and
watering the animals. Afterward the stone would
be placed back over the mouth of the well.
4Jacob went over to the shepherds and asked,
“Where are you from, my friends?”
“We are from Haran,” they answered.
5 “Do you know a man there named Laban, the
grandson of Nahor?” he asked.
“Yes, we do,” they replied.
6“Is he doing well?” Jacob asked.
“Yes, he’s well,” they answered. “Look, here
comes his daughter Rachel with the flock now.”
7Jacob said, “Look, it’s still broad daylight—too
early to round up the animals. Why don’t you water the sheep and goats so they can get back out
to pasture?”
8 “We can’t water the animals until all the
flocks have arrived,” they replied. “Then the
shepherds move the stone from the mouth of
the well, and we water all the sheep and goats.”
9Jacob was still talking with them when Rachel arrived with her father’s flock, for she was
a shepherd. 10 And because Rachel was his
cousin—the daughter of Laban, his mother’s
brother—and because the sheep and goats belonged to his uncle Laban, Jacob went over to the
well and moved the stone from its mouth and
watered his uncle’s flock. 11 Then Jacob kissed
Rachel, and he wept aloud. 12He explained to
Rachel that he was her cousin on her father’s
side—the son of her aunt Rebekah. So Rachel
quickly ran and told her father, Laban.
13As soon as Laban heard that his nephew
Jacob had arrived, he ran out to meet him. He
