HelpFinder Bible - Flipbook - Page 397
G ENESIS 29
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listen carefully, my son. Get ready and flee to my
brother, Laban, in Haran. 44 Stay there with him
until your brother cools off. 45 When he calms
down and forgets what you have done to him,
I will send for you to come back. Why should I
lose both of you in one day?”
46 Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I’m sick and
tired of these local Hittite women! I would
rather die than see Jacob marry one of them.”
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So Isaac called for Jacob, blessed him,
and said, “You must not marry any of
these Canaanite women. 2 Instead, go at once to
Paddan-aram, to the house of your grandfather
Bethuel, and marry one of your uncle Laban’s
daughters. 3 May God Almighty* bless you and
give you many children. And may your descendants multiply and become many nations! 4 May
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.
6 Esau 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.” 7 He also knew
that Jacob had obeyed his parents and gone to
Paddan-aram. 8 It 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
10 Meanwhile, Jacob left Beersheba and traveled
toward Haran. 11 At 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. 12 As 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.
13 At 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
28:3 Hebrew El-Shaddai. 28:4 Hebrew seed; also in 28:13, 14.
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.”
16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said,
“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn’t
even aware of it!” 17 But 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!”
18 The 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. 19 He
named that place Bethel (which means “house
of God”), although it was previously called Luz.
20 Then 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, 21 and if I return safely to my father’s home,
then the Lord will certainly be my God. 22 And
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.”
Jacob Arrives at Paddan-Aram
Then Jacob hurried on, finally arriving
in the land of the east. 2 He 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.
3 It 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. 4 Jacob 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.”
7 Jacob 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.”
9 Jacob 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
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