Study Desk

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

And Leah also and her children came near, and bowed down; and after came Joseph near and Rachel, and they bowed down.

And he said unto him: 'My lord knoweth that the children are tender, and that the flocks and herds giving suck are a care to me; and if they overdrive them one day, all the flocks will die.

Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter; and his sons were with his cattle in the field; and Jacob held his peace until they came.

And the sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard it; and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he had wrought a vile deed in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter; which thing ought not to be done.

Shall not their cattle and their substance and all their beasts be ours? only let us consent unto them, and they will dwell with us.'

And it came to pass on the third day, when they were in pain, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city unawares, and slew all the males.

And they slew Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem's house, and went forth.

The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and spoiled the city, because they had defiled their sister.

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

and all their wealth, and all their little ones and their wives, took they captive and spoiled, even all that was in the house.

And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi: 'Ye have troubled me, to make me odious unto the inhabitants of the land, even unto the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and, I being few in number, they will gather themselves together against me and smite me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.'

And they said: 'Should one deal with our sister as with a harlot?'

And they gave unto Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hand, and the rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the terebinth which was by Shechem.

And they journeyed; and a terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.

And they journeyed from Beth-el; and there was still some way to come to Ephrath; and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour.

And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.

And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren; and they hated him yet the more.

And his brethren said to him: 'Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?' And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.

And he said: 'I seek my brethren. Tell me, I pray thee, where they are feeding the flock.'