Study Desk

But Hamor talked to Dinah's brothers and said, "My son Shechem is deeply in love with Dinah. Please let him marry her.

But we will allow you to marry her if you do this one thing: Every man in your town must be circumcised like us.

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.

But the brothers said, "We will not allow our sister to be treated like a prostitute."

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.

God said to him, "Your name is Jacob, but you will not be called Jacob any longer. Your new name will be Israel." So he called him Israel.

but she was having much trouble. When Rachel's nurse saw this, she said, "Don't be afraid, Rachel. You are giving birth to another son."

Rachel gave birth to the son, but she herself died. As she lay dying, she named the boy Son of My Suffering, but Jacob called him Benjamin.

Joseph also told his father about this dream, but his father scolded him, saying, "What kind of dream is this? Do you really believe that your mother, your brothers, and I will bow down to you?"

Joseph's brothers were jealous of him, but his father thought about what all these things could mean.

But Reuben heard their plan and saved Joseph, saying, "Let's not kill him.

Don't spill any blood. Throw him into this well here in the desert, but don't hurt him!" Reuben planned to save Joseph later and send him back to his father.

All of his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he could not be comforted. He said, "I will be sad about my son until the day I die." So Jacob cried for his son Joseph.

But Er, Judah's oldest son, did what the Lord said was evil, so the Lord killed him.

But Onan knew that the children would not belong to him, so when he was supposed to have sexual relations with Tamar he did not complete the sex act. This made it impossible for Tamar to become pregnant and for Er to have descendants.

So she took off the clothes that showed she was a widow and covered her face with a veil to hide who she was. Then she sat down by the gate of Enaim on the road to Timnah. She did this because Judah's younger son Shelah had grown up, but Judah had not made plans for her to marry him.

Judah sent his friend Hirah with the young goat to find the woman and get back his seal and the walking stick he had given her, but Hirah could not find her.

Judah said, "Let her keep the things. I don't want people to laugh at us. I sent her the goat as I promised, but you could not find her."

But he pulled his hand back in, so the other baby was born first. The nurse said, "So you are able to break out first," and they named him Perez.

But Joseph refused and said to her, "My master trusts me with everything in his house. He has put me in charge of everything he owns.