Jacob Is Sent Away

¹So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him, and said to him, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. ² Arise, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and from there take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. ³ May ^[a]God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. ⁴ May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your ^[b]descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham.” ⁵ Then Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

⁶ Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take to himself a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he charged him, saying, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,” ⁷ and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan-aram. ⁸ So Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan displeased ^[c]his father Isaac; ⁹ and Esau went to Ishmael, and ^[d]married, besides the wives that he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth.

Jacob’s Dream

¹⁰ Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. ¹¹ He ^[e]came to ^[f]a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it ^[g]under his head, and lay down in that place. ¹² He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. ¹³ And behold, the Lord stood ^[h]above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your ^[i]descendants. ¹⁴ Your ^[j]descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will ^[k]spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your ^[l]descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. ¹⁵ Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have ^[m]promised you.” ¹⁶ Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” ¹⁷ He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

¹⁸ So Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put ^[n]under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top. ¹⁹ He called the name of that place ^[o]Bethel; however, ^[p]previously the name of the city had been Luz. ²⁰ Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I ^[q]take, and will give me ^[r]food to eat and garments to wear, ²¹ and I return to my father’s house in ^[s]safety, then the Lord will be my God. ²² This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.”