Study Desk

When all the flocks would gather there, the shepherds would roll the stone away from the well and water the sheep. Then they would put the stone back in its place.

But they said, "We cannot do that until all the flocks are gathered. Then we will roll away the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep."

That evening he brought his daughter Leah to Jacob, and they had sexual relations.

One day Jacob heard Laban's sons talking. They said, "Jacob has taken everything our father owned, and in this way he has become rich."

and they began their journey back to Isaac, his father, in the land of Canaan. All the flocks of animals that Jacob owned walked ahead of them. He carried everything with him that he had gotten while he lived in Northwest Mesopotamia.

He told his relatives to gather rocks, so they took the rocks and piled them up; then they ate beside the pile.

Then Jacob killed an animal and offered it as a sacrifice on the mountain, and he invited his relatives to share in the meal. After they finished eating, they spent the night on the mountain.

Then you will answer, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. He sent them as a gift to you, my master Esau, and he also is coming behind us.'"

But Esau ran to meet Jacob and put his arms around him and hugged him. Then Esau kissed him, and they both cried.

Leah and her children also came up to Esau and also bowed down flat on the earth. Last of all, Joseph and Rachel came up to Esau, and they, too, bowed down flat before him.

What they asked seemed fair to Hamor and Shechem.

But we must agree to one thing: All our men must be circumcised as they are. Then they will agree to live in our land, and we will be one people.

If we do this, their cattle and their animals will belong to us. Let us do what they say, and they will stay in our land."

All the people who had come to the city gate heard this. They agreed with Hamor and Shechem, and every man was circumcised.

They killed Hamor and his son Shechem and then took Dinah out of Shechem's house and left.

They took every valuable thing the people owned, even their wives and children and everything in the houses.

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have caused me a lot of trouble. Now the Canaanites and the Perizzites who live in the land will hate me. Since there are only a few of us, if they join together to attack us, my people and I will be destroyed."

So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had, and the earrings they were wearing, and he hid them under the great tree near the town of Shechem.

Then Jacob and his sons left there. But God caused the people in the nearby cities to be afraid, so they did not follow them.

Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died and was buried under the oak tree at Bethel, so they named that place Oak of Crying.