Study Desk

Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain, and called his kinsmen to the meal; and they ate the meal and spent the night on the mountain.

Then Esau ran to meet him and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.

Then the maids came near with their children, and they bowed down.

Leah likewise came near with her children, and they bowed down; and afterward Joseph came near with Rachel, and they bowed down.

But he said to him, "My lord knows that the children are frail and that the flocks and herds which are nursing are a care to me. And if they are driven hard one day, all the flocks will die.

Now the sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard it; and the men were grieved, and they were very angry because he had done a disgraceful thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing ought not to be done.

"Will not their livestock and their property and all their animals be ours? Only let us consent to them, and they will live with us."

Now it came about on the third day, when they were in pain, that two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, each took his sword and came upon the city unawares, and killed every male.

They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah from Shechem's house, and went forth.

Jacob's sons came upon the slain and looted the city, because they had defiled their sister.

They took their flocks and their herds and their donkeys, and that which was in the city and that which was in the field;

and they captured and looted all their wealth and all their little ones and their wives, even all that was in the houses.

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have brought trouble on me by making me odious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and my men being few in number, they will gather together against me and attack me and I will be destroyed, I and my household."

So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods which they had and the rings which were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak which was near Shechem.

As they journeyed, there was a great terror upon the cities which were around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob.

Then they journeyed from Bethel; and when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and she suffered severe labor.

For their property had become too great for them to live together, and the land where they sojourned could not sustain them because of their livestock.

His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers; and so they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms.

Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.

Then his brothers said to him, "Are you actually going to reign over us? Or are you really going to rule over us?" So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.