Genesis 28

CHAPTER 28

Jacob Is Sent to Laban

¹So Isaac called Jacob and ^ablessed him and commanded him and said to him, “^bYou shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.

²“Arise, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of ^aBethuel your mother’s father; and from there take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother.

³“May ^1aGod Almighty ^bbless you and ^cmake you fruitful and ^dmultiply you, that you may become an ^eassembly of peoples.

⁴“May He also give you the ^ablessing of Abraham, to you and to your seed with you, that you may ^bpossess the land of your ^csojournings, which God gave to Abraham.”

⁵Then ^aIsaac 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.

⁶And Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take for himself a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, saying, “^aYou shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,”

⁷and that Jacob had listened to his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan-aram.

⁸So Esau saw that ^athe daughters of Canaan were displeasing ¹in the sight of his father Isaac;

⁹and Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife, ^abesides the wives that he had.

Jacob’s Dream

¹⁰Then Jacob departed from ^aBeersheba and went toward ^bHaran.

¹¹And he reached ¹a ^acertain place and spent the night there because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it ²under his head and lay down in that place.

^12aThen he had a dream, and behold, a ¹ladder stood on the earth with its top touching heaven; and behold, ^bthe angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

¹³And behold, ^aYahweh stood ¹above it and said, “I am Yahweh, ^bthe God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it ^cto you and to ^dyour seed.

¹⁴“And your seed will also be like ^athe dust of the earth, and you will ¹spread out ^bto the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and ^cin you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

¹⁵“Behold, ^aI am with you and ^bwill keep you wherever you go. And ^cI will bring you back to this land; for ^dI will not forsake you until I have done what I have ¹promised you.”

¹⁶Then Jacob ^aawoke from his sleep and said, “^bSurely Yahweh is in this place, and I did not know it.”

¹⁷And he was afraid and said, “^aHow fearsome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

¹⁸So Jacob rose early in the morning and took ^athe stone that he had put ¹under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top.

¹⁹And he called the name of that place ^1aBethel; however, ²previously the name of the city had been ^bLuz.

²⁰Then Jacob ^amade a vow, saying, “^bIf God will be with me and will keep me on this journey on which I am going, and will give me ^1cfood to eat and garments to wear,

²¹and ^aI return to my father’s house in peace, ^bthen Yahweh will be my God.

²²“Now this stone, which I have set up as a pillar, ^awill be God’s house, and ^bof all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.”