Study Desk

He looked and saw a well in a field. Three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it because the sheep were watered from this well. A large stone covered the opening of the well.

Laban said to him, "Just because you're my relative, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be."

So Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, and they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.

She conceived again, gave birth to a son, and said, "At last, my husband will become attached to me because I have borne three sons for him." Therefore he was named Levi.

"God has given me a good gift," Leah said. "This time my husband will honor me because I have borne six sons for him," and she named him Zebulun.

But Laban said to him, "If I have found favor in your sight, stay. I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you."

For you had very little before I came, but now your wealth has increased. The Lord has blessed you because of me. And now, when will I also do something for my own family?"

Now you have gone off because you long for your father—but why have you stolen my gods?"

"Your name will no longer be Jacob," He said. "It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed."

The sun shone on him as he passed by Penuel—limping because of his hip.

That is why, to this day, the Israelites don't eat the thigh muscle that is at the hip socket: because He struck Jacob's hip socket at the thigh muscle.

Please take my present that was brought to you, because God has been gracious to me and I have everything I need." So Jacob urged him until he accepted.

But Jacob's sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully because he had defiled their sister Dinah.

The young man did not delay doing this, because he was delighted with Jacob's daughter. Now he was the most important in all his father's house.

Jacob's other sons came to the slaughter and plundered the city because their sister had been defiled.

Jacob built an altar there and called the place God of Bethel because it was there that God had revealed Himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

For their possessions were too many for them to live together, and because of their herds, the land where they stayed could not support them.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than his other sons because Joseph was a son born to him in his old age, and he made a robe of many colors for him.

"Are you really going to reign over us?" his brothers asked him. "Are you really going to rule us?" So they hated him even more because of his dream and what he had said.

From the time that he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house because of Joseph. The Lord 's blessing was on all that he owned, in his house and in his fields.