Genesis — Legacy Standard Bible

Creation

1^aIn the beginning ^bGod ^ccreated the heavens and the earth. ²And the earth was ¹^,^aformless and void, and ^bdarkness was over the ²surface of the deep, and ^cthe Spirit of God ^dwas hovering over the ³surface of the waters. ³Then ^aGod said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. ⁴And God saw that the light was ^agood; and God ^bseparated the light from the darkness. ⁵^aAnd God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And ^bthere was evening and there was morning, one day.

⁶Then God said, “Let there be ¹an ^aexpanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” ⁷So God made the ¹expanse and separated ^athe waters which were below the ²expanse from the waters ^bwhich were above the ³expanse; and it was so. ⁸And God called the ¹expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

⁹Then God said, “^aLet the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let ^bthe dry land appear”; and it was so. ¹⁰And God called the dry land earth, and the ^agathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. ¹¹Then God said, “Let the earth sprout ¹^,^avegetation, ²plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after ³their kind ⁴with seed in them”; and it was so. ¹²And the earth brought forth ¹vegetation, ²plants yielding seed after ³their kind, and trees bearing fruit ⁴with seed in them, after ⁵their kind; and God saw that it was good. ¹³And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

¹⁴Then God said, “Let there be ¹^,^alights in the ²^,^bexpanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for ^csigns and for ^dseasons and for days and years; ¹⁵and let them be for ¹lights in the ²expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. ¹⁶So God made the two ¹great lights, the ^agreater ²light ³to rule the day, and the lesser ⁴light ⁵to rule the night, and also ^bthe stars. ¹⁷^aAnd God placed them in the ¹expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, ¹⁸and ¹to ^arule the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. ¹⁹And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

²⁰Then God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth ¹across the face of the ²expanse of the heavens.” ²¹And God created ^athe great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. ²²Then God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.” ²³And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

²⁴^aThen God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after ¹their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after ²their kind”; and it was so. ²⁵God made the ^abeasts of the earth after ¹their kind, and the cattle after ²their kind, and every creeping thing of the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

²⁶Then God said, “Let ^aUs make ^bman in Our image, according to Our likeness, so that they will have ^cdominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the ¹sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷And God created man ^ain His own image, in the image of God He created him; ^bmale and female He created them. ²⁸God blessed them, and God said to them, “^aBe fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the ¹sky and over every living thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁹Then God said, “Behold, ^aI have given to you every plant yielding seed that is on the ¹surface of all the earth, and every tree ²which has the fruit of the tree yielding seed; it shall be food for you; ³⁰and ^ato every beast of the earth and to every bird of the ¹sky and to every thing that creeps on the earth ²which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. ³¹And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very ^agood. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

2Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all ^atheir hosts. ²And ¹on ^athe seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and ^bHe rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. ³Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God had created ¹in making it.

The Generations of the Heavens and the Earth

⁴^aThese are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in ^bthe day that ¹Yahweh God made earth and heaven. ⁵^aNow no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet grown, ^bfor Yahweh God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to ¹cultivate the ground. ⁶But a ¹stream would rise from the earth and water the whole ²surface of the ground. ⁷Then Yahweh God formed man of ^adust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and so the ^bman became a living ¹being. ⁸And Yahweh God planted a ^agarden in Eden, toward the east; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. ⁹And out of the ground Yahweh God caused to grow ^aevery tree that is ^bdesirable in appearance and good for food; ^cthe tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰Now a ^ariver went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four ¹rivers. ¹¹The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that ¹went around the whole land of ^aHavilah, where there is gold. ¹²Now the gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. ¹³And the name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that ¹went around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴And the name of the third river is ¹^,^aTigris; it is the one that went east of ²Asshur. And the fourth river is the ³^,^bEuphrates.

¹⁵Then Yahweh God took the man and ¹set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. ¹⁶And Yahweh God ^acommanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may surely eat; ¹⁷but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it; for in the day that you eat from it ^ayou will surely die.”

¹⁸Then Yahweh God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; ^aI will make him a helper ¹suitable for him.” ¹⁹^aAnd out of the ground Yahweh God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the ¹sky, and He ^bbrought each to the man to see what he would call it; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. ²⁰And the man gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the ¹sky and to every beast of the field; but for ²Adam there was not found ^aa helper ³suitable for him. ²¹So Yahweh God caused a ^adeep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. ²²And Yahweh God ¹fashioned ^athe rib, which He had taken from the man, into a woman, and He brought her to the man. ²³Then the man said, “^aThis one finally is bone of my bones,And flesh of my flesh;This one shall be called ¹Woman,Because this one was taken out of ²Man.”

²⁴^aTherefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. ²⁵^aAnd the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Adam and Eve Sent Out from the Garden

3Now ^athe serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which Yahweh God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘¹You shall not eat from ²any tree of the garden’?” ²And the woman said to the serpent, “^aFrom the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; ³but from the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, ‘You shall not eat from it, and you shall not touch it, lest you die.’” ⁴^aAnd the serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! ⁵“For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and ^ayou will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶^aThen the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, so she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. ⁷And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they ^aknew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves ¹loin coverings.

⁸Then they heard the sound of ^aYahweh God walking in the garden in the ¹cool of the day, ^band the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God in the midst of the trees of the garden. ⁹Yahweh God called to the man and said to him, “^aWhere are you?” ¹⁰And he said, “^aI heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” ¹¹And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” ¹²^aAnd the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave to me from the tree, and I ate.” ¹³Then Yahweh God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “^aThe serpent deceived me, and I ate.” ¹⁴And Yahweh God said to the serpent, “^aBecause you have done this,Cursed are you more than any of the cattle,And more than every beast of the field;On your belly you will go,And ^bdust you will eatAll the days of your life;

¹⁵And I will put ^aenmityBetween you and the woman,And between your seed and her seed;^bHe shall ¹bruise you on the head,And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

¹⁶To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiplyYour pain and ¹conception,In pain you will ²^,^abear children;Your desire will be for your husband,And ^bhe will rule over you.”

¹⁷Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; ^aCursed is the ground because of you;^bIn ¹pain you will eat of itAll the days of your life.

¹⁸“Both thorns and thistles it shall ^agrow for you;And you will eat the ¹plants of the field;¹⁹By the sweat of your ¹faceYou will eat bread,Till you ^areturn to the ground,Because ^bfrom it you were taken;For you are dust,And to dust you shall return.”

²⁰Now the man called his wife’s name ¹^,^aEve, because she was the mother of all the living. ²¹Then Yahweh God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.

²²Then Yahweh God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of ^aUs ¹to know good and evil; and now, lest he send forth his hand and take also from ^bthe tree of life and eat and live forever”— ²³therefore Yahweh God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to ¹cultivate the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴So ^aHe drove the man out; and at the ^beast of the garden of Eden He stationed the ^ccherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to ¹guard the way to ^dthe tree of life.

Cain and Abel

4Now the man ¹knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and ²gave birth to ³Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a ⁴man with the help of Yahweh.” ²And again, she ¹gave birth to his brother Abel. ^aAbel was ^ba keeper of flocks, but Cain was a cultivator of the ground. ³So it happened ¹in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to Yahweh of the fruit of the ground. ⁴^aAbel, on his part, also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And ^bYahweh had regard for Abel and for his offering; ⁵but ^afor Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So ^bCain became very angry, and his countenance fell. ⁶Then Yahweh said to Cain, “^aWhy are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? ⁷“^aIf you do well, ¹will not your countenance be lifted up? ^bAnd if you do not do well, sin is lying at the door; and its desire is for you, ^cbut you must rule over it.” ⁸Then Cain ¹spoke to Abel his brother; and it happened when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and ^akilled him.

⁹Then Yahweh said to Cain, “^aWhere is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” ¹⁰And He said, “What have you done? ^aThe voice of your brother’s blood is crying out to Me from the ground. ¹¹“And now, ^acursed are you from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. ¹²“^aWhen you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; ^byou will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.” ¹³And Cain said to Yahweh, “My punishment is too great to bear! ¹⁴“Behold, You have ^adriven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and ^bI will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and it will be that ^cwhoever finds me will kill me.” ¹⁵So Yahweh said to him, “Therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him ^asevenfold.” And Yahweh ¹^,^bappointed a sign for Cain, so that no one who found him would strike him.

¹⁶Then Cain went out from the presence ^aof Yahweh and ¹settled in the land of ²Nod, east of Eden.

¹⁷Then Cain ¹knew his wife, and she conceived and ²gave birth to Enoch; and he built a city and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son. ¹⁸Now to Enoch was born Irad, and Irad ¹was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael ²was the father of Methushael, and Methushael ³was the father of Lamech. ¹⁹And Lamech took for himself ^atwo wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other, Zillah. ²⁰And Adah ¹gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and have livestock. ²¹And his brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. ²²As for Zillah, she also ¹gave birth to Tubal-cain, the forger of all implements of bronze and iron; and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

²³And Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah,Hear my voice,You wives of Lamech,Give ear to my word,^aFor I ¹have killed a man for ²striking me;And a boy for wounding me;

²⁴If Cain is avenged ^asevenfold,Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”

²⁵^aThen Adam ¹knew his wife again; and she ²gave birth to a son and named him ³Seth, for she said, “God ⁴has set for me another ⁵seed in place of Abel, ^bfor Cain killed him.” ²⁶And to Seth, to him also, ^aa son was born; and he called his name Enosh. Then men began ^bto call ¹upon the name of Yahweh.

The Generations of Adam

5This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him ^ain the likeness of God. ²He created them ^amale and female, and He ^bblessed them and named them ¹Man in the day when they were created.

³When Adam had lived 130 years, he ¹became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth. ⁴Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were 800 years, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. ⁵So all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.

⁶And Seth lived 105 years and became the father of Enosh. ⁷Then Seth lived 807 years after he became the father of Enosh, and he had other sons and daughters. ⁸So all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died.

⁹And Enosh lived 90 years and became the father of Kenan. ¹⁰Then Enosh lived 815 years after he became the father of Kenan, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. ¹¹So all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died.

¹²And Kenan lived 70 years and became the father of Mahalalel. ¹³Then Kenan lived 840 years after he became the father of Mahalalel, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. ¹⁴So all the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died.

¹⁵And Mahalalel lived 65 years and became the father of Jared. ¹⁶Then Mahalalel lived 830 years after he became the father of Jared, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. ¹⁷So all the days of Mahalalel were 895 years, and he died.

¹⁸And Jared lived 162 years and became the father of Enoch. ¹⁹Then Jared lived 800 years after he became the father of Enoch, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. ²⁰So all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died.

²¹And Enoch lived 65 years and became the father of Methuselah. ²²Then Enoch ^awalked with God 300 years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. ²³So all the days of Enoch were 365 years. ²⁴^aEnoch walked with God; and he was not, for God ^btook him.

²⁵And Methuselah lived 187 years and became the father of Lamech. ²⁶Then Methuselah lived 782 years after he became the father of Lamech, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. ²⁷So all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.

²⁸And Lamech lived 182 years and became the father of a son. ²⁹Now he called his name Noah, saying, “This one will ¹give us rest from our work and from the pain of our hands arising from ^athe ground which Yahweh has cursed.” ³⁰Then Lamech lived 595 years after he became the father of Noah, and he became the father of other sons and daughters. ³¹So all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died.

³²And Noah was ^a500 years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

The Nephilim and the Daughters of Men

6Now it happened, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, ²that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were good in appearance; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. ³Then Yahweh said, “^aMy Spirit shall not ¹strive with man forever ²^,^bbecause he indeed is flesh; ³nevertheless his days shall be 120 years.” ⁴The ^aNephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

⁵Then Yahweh saw that the evil of man was great on the earth, and that ^aevery intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ⁶^aAnd Yahweh regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was ^bgrieved ¹in His heart. ⁷And Yahweh said, “^aI will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the ¹sky; for ^bI regret that I have made them.” ⁸But ^aNoah ^bfound favor in the eyes of Yahweh.

The Generations of Noah

⁹These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a ^arighteous man, ¹^,^bblameless among those in his generations; Noah ^cwalked with God. ¹⁰And Noah ¹became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

¹¹Now the earth was ^acorrupt before God, and the earth was ^bfilled with violence. ¹²And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for ^aall flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.

¹³Then God said to Noah, “^aThe end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. ¹⁴“Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and you shall ¹cover it inside and out with pitch. ¹⁵“Now this is how you shall make it: the length of the ark ¹300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. ¹⁶“You shall make a ¹window for the ark, and complete it to one ²cubit from ³the top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. ¹⁷“As for Me, behold ^aI am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall breathe its last. ¹⁸“But I will establish ^aMy covenant with you; and ^byou shall enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁹“^aAnd of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. ²⁰“^aOf the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. ²¹“As for you, take for yourself some of all ^afood which is edible, and gather it to yourself; and it shall be for food for you and for them.” ²²^aThus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did.

Noah and the Flood

7Then Yahweh said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be ^arighteous before Me in this generation. ²“You shall take ¹with you of every ^aclean animal ²by sevens, a male and his female; and of the animals that are not clean, two, a male and his female; ³also of the birds of the ¹sky, ²by sevens, male and female, to keep their seed alive on the face of all the earth. ⁴“For after ^aseven more days, I will send rain on the earth ^bforty days and forty nights; and I will blot out from the face of the land ^cevery living thing that I have made.” ⁵^aAnd Noah did according to all that Yahweh had commanded him.

⁶Now Noah was ^asix hundred years old when the flood of water ¹came upon the earth. ⁷Then ^aNoah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him entered the ark because of the water of the flood. ⁸^aOf clean animals and animals that are not clean and birds and everything that creeps on the ground, ⁹¹by twos they came to Noah into the ark, male and female, as God had commanded Noah. ¹⁰Now it happened after ^athe seven days, that the water of the flood ¹came upon the earth. ¹¹In the ^asix hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on this day all ^bthe fountains of the great deep split open, and the ¹floodgates of the sky were opened. ¹²^aThen the rain ¹came upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.

¹³On this very day ^aNoah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark, ¹⁴they and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after ¹their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind—every ²fowl, every winged creature. ¹⁵So they came to Noah into the ark, ^aby twos of all flesh in which was the breath of life. ¹⁶And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him; and Yahweh closed it behind him.

¹⁷Then the flood ¹came upon the earth for ^aforty days, and the water multiplied and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth. ¹⁸And the water prevailed and multiplied greatly upon the earth, and the ark went on the ¹surface of the water. ¹⁹And the water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains under all the heavens were covered. ²⁰The water prevailed ¹fifteen cubits higher, ^aand the mountains were covered. ²¹^aAnd all flesh that ¹moved on the earth breathed its last, that is birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, as well as all mankind. ²²All ^ain whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life—of all that was on the dry land—died. ²³Thus He blotted out ¹every living thing that was upon the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the ²sky, and they were blotted out from the earth; and only ^aNoah remained, and those that were with him in the ark. ²⁴^aAnd the water prevailed upon the earth 150 days.

The Water Dries Up

8Then ^aGod remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and ^bGod caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided. ²Also ^athe fountains of the deep and the ¹floodgates of the sky were closed, and ^bthe rain from the sky was restrained; ³and the water receded from the earth, going forth and returning, and at the end ^aof 150 days the water decreased. ⁴In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, ^athe ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. ⁵Now the water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared.

⁶Then it happened at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the ^awindow of the ark which he had made; ⁷and he sent out a raven, and it went out flying back and forth until the water was dried up ¹from the earth. ⁸Then he sent out a dove from him, to see if the water was abated from the face of the land; ⁹but the dove found no resting place for the sole of its foot, so it returned to him into the ark, for the water was on the ¹surface of all the earth. Then he stretched out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark to himself. ¹⁰Then he waited yet another seven days; and again he sent out the dove from the ark. ¹¹And the dove came to him toward ¹evening, and behold, in its ²beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth. ¹²Then he waited yet another seven days and sent out ^athe dove; but it did not return to him again.

¹³Now it happened in the ^asix hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up ¹from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the ²surface of the ground was dried up. ¹⁴In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. ¹⁵Then God spoke to Noah, saying, ¹⁶“Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁷“Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may ^aswarm on the earth, and that they may be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” ¹⁸So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. ¹⁹Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out ¹by their families from the ark.

Yahweh’s Covenant with Noah

²⁰Then Noah built ^aan altar to Yahweh and took of every ^bclean animal and of every clean bird and offered ^cburnt offerings on the altar. ²¹And Yahweh ^asmelled the ¹soothing aroma; and Yahweh said ²to Himself, “I will never again ^bcurse the ground because of man, for ^cthe ³intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; ^dand I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done.

²²“While all the days of the earth remain,Seedtime and harvest,And cold and heat,And ^asummer and winter,And ^bday and nightShall not cease.”

9And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “^aBe fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. ²“And the fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the ¹sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given. ³“Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; ^aas with the green plant, I give all to you. ⁴“However, flesh with its life, that is, ^aits blood, you shall not eat. ⁵“Surely I will require ¹^,^ayour lifeblood; ²^,^bfrom every living thing I will require it. And ³from every man, ⁴from each man’s brother I will require the life of man.

⁶“^aWhoever sheds man’s blood,By man his blood shall be shed,For ^bin the image of GodHe made man.⁷“As for you, ^abe fruitful and multiply;¹Swarm on the earth and multiply in it.”

⁸Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, ⁹“As for Me, behold, ^aI establish My covenant with you and with your seed after you; ¹⁰and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth. ¹¹“Indeed I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall ^anever again be cut off by the water of the flood, ^band there shall never again be a flood to destroy the earth.” ¹²Then God said, “This is ^athe sign of the covenant which I am giving to be between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for ¹all successive generations; ¹³I put My ^abow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. ¹⁴“And it will be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, ¹⁵and ^aI will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and ^bnever again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. ¹⁶“So the bow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it, to remember the ^aeverlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” ¹⁷And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Noah’s Three Sons

¹⁸Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth; and ^aHam was the father of Canaan. ¹⁹These three were the sons of Noah, and ^afrom these the whole earth was scattered abroad.

²⁰Then Noah began to be ¹a man of the land and planted a vineyard. ²¹And he drank of the wine and ^abecame drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent. ²²Then Ham, the father of Canaan, ^asaw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. ²³But Shem and Japheth took the garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned backward, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness. ²⁴Then Noah awoke from his wine, and he knew what his youngest son had done to him. ²⁵So he said, “^aCursed be Canaan;¹^,^bA servant of servantsHe shall be to his brothers.”

²⁶And he said, “^aBlessed be Yahweh,The God of Shem;And let Canaan be ¹his servant.

²⁷“^aMay God enlarge Japheth,And let him dwell in the tents of Shem;And let Canaan be ¹his servant.”

²⁸And Noah lived 350 years after the flood. ²⁹So all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

The Generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth

10Now these are the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and sons were born to them after the flood.

²^aThe sons of Japheth were ^bGomer and Magog and ^cMadai and ^dJavan and Tubal and ^eMeshech and Tiras. ³The sons of Gomer were ^aAshkenaz and ¹Riphath and ^bTogarmah. ⁴The sons of Javan were Elishah and ^aTarshish, Kittim and ¹Dodanim. ⁵From these the coastlands of the nations ¹were separated into their lands, every one according to his tongue, according to their families, into their nations.

⁶^aThe sons of Ham were Cush and ¹Mizraim and Put and Canaan. ⁷The sons of Cush were ^aSeba and Havilah and Sabtah and ^bRaamah and Sabteca; and the sons of Raamah were ^cSheba and ^dDedan. ⁸Now Cush ¹was the father of Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth. ⁹He was a mighty hunter before Yahweh; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before Yahweh.” ¹⁰The beginning of his kingdom was ¹^,^aBabel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of ^bShinar. ¹¹From that land he went out ^ato Assyria and built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah, ¹²and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. ¹³Mizraim ¹was the father of ^aLudim and Anamim and Lehabim and Naphtuhim ¹⁴and ^aPathrusim and Casluhim (from whom came the Philistines) and Caphtorim.

¹⁵Canaan ¹was the father of ^aSidon, his firstborn, and ^bHeth ¹⁶and ^athe Jebusite and the Amorite and the Girgashite ¹⁷and the Hivite and the Arkite and the Sinite ¹⁸and the Arvadite and the Zemarite and the Hamathite; and afterward the families of the Canaanite were scattered. ¹⁹^aThe border of the Canaanite ¹extended from Sidon as you go toward Gerar, as far as Gaza; as you go toward ^bSodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. ²⁰These are the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their tongues, by their lands, by their nations.

²¹Also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, and the ¹older brother of Japheth, children were born. ²²^aThe sons of Shem were ^bElam and Asshur and ^cArpachshad and ^dLud and Aram. ²³The sons of Aram were ^aUz and Hul and Gether and Mash. ²⁴Arpachshad ¹was the father of ^aShelah; and Shelah ²was the father of Eber. ²⁵^aNow two sons were born to Eber; the name of the one was ¹Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan. ²⁶And Joktan ¹was the father of Almodad and Sheleph and Hazarmaveth and Jerah ²⁷and Hadoram and Uzal and Diklah ²⁸and ¹Obal and Abimael and Sheba ²⁹and Ophir and Havilah and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan.

³⁰Now their ¹settlement ²extended from Mesha as you go toward Sephar, the hill country of the east. ³¹These are the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their tongues, by their lands, according to their nations.

³²These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations, by their nations; and ^aout of these the nations were separated on the earth after the flood.

The Tower of Babel

11Now the whole earth ¹had the same language and ²the same words. ²And it happened as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land ^aof Shinar and ¹settled there. ³Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and they had ^atar for mortar. ⁴And they said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top ^awill reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves ^ba name, lest we ^cbe scattered over the face of the whole earth.” ⁵^aThen Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. ⁶And Yahweh said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have ¹^,^athe same language. And this is what they have begun to do. So now nothing which they purpose to do will be ²impossible for them. ⁷“Come, ^alet Us go down and there ^bconfuse their ¹language, so that they will not understand one another’s ²language.” ⁸So Yahweh ^ascattered them from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. ⁹Therefore its name was called ¹^,^aBabel, because there Yahweh confused the ²language of the whole earth; and from there Yahweh scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

The Generations of Shem

¹⁰^aThese are the generations of Shem. Shem was 100 years old and ¹became the father of Arpachshad two years after the flood; ¹¹and Shem lived 500 years after he became the father of Arpachshad, and he became the father of other sons and daughters.

¹²And Arpachshad lived 35 years and became the father of Shelah; ¹³and Arpachshad lived 403 years after he became the father of Shelah, and he became the father of other sons and daughters.

¹⁴And Shelah lived 30 years and became the father of Eber; ¹⁵and Shelah lived 403 years after he became the father of Eber, and he became the father of other sons and daughters.

¹⁶And Eber lived 34 years and became the father of Peleg; ¹⁷and Eber lived 430 years after he became the father of Peleg, and he became the father of other sons and daughters.

¹⁸And Peleg lived 30 years and became the father of Reu; ¹⁹and Peleg lived 209 years after he became the father of Reu, and he became the father of other sons and daughters.

²⁰And Reu lived 32 years and became the father of Serug; ²¹and Reu lived 207 years after he became the father of Serug, and he became the father of other sons and daughters.

²²And Serug lived 30 years and became the father of Nahor; ²³and Serug lived 200 years after he became the father of Nahor, and he became the father of other sons and daughters.

²⁴Nahor lived 29 years and became the father of ^aTerah; ²⁵and Nahor lived 119 years after he became the father of Terah, and he became the father of other sons and daughters.

²⁶And Terah lived 70 years and became ^athe father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

The Generations of Terah

²⁷Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and ^aHaran became the father of ^bLot. ²⁸And Haran died ¹in the presence of Terah his father in the land of his birth, in ^aUr of the Chaldeans. ²⁹Abram and ^aNahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram’s wife was ^bSarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife was ^cMilcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and the father of Iscah. ³⁰^aAnd Sarai was barren; she had no child.

³¹And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went out ¹together from ^aUr of the Chaldeans in order to go to the land of Canaan; and they came as far as Haran and ²settled there. ³²And the days of Terah were 205 years; and Terah died in Haran.

Yahweh Appears to Abram

12And ^aYahweh said to Abram, “¹Go forth from your land,And from your kinAnd from your father’s house,To the land which I will show you;

²And ^aI will make you a great nation,And ^bI will bless you,And make your name great;And so ¹^,^cyou shall be a blessing;³And ^aI will bless those who bless you,And the one who ¹curses you I will ²curse.^bAnd in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

⁴So Abram went forth as Yahweh had spoken to him; and ^aLot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. ⁵So Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their ^apossessions which they had accumulated, and ^bthe ¹persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go forth to the land of Canaan; ^cthus they came to the land of Canaan. ⁶And Abram passed through the land as far as the site of ^aShechem, to the ¹oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land. ⁷Then Yahweh ^aappeared to Abram and said, “^bTo your seed I will give this land.” So he built ^can altar there to Yahweh who had appeared to him. ⁸Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with ^aBethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to Yahweh and ^bcalled upon the name of Yahweh. ⁹And Abram journeyed on, continuing toward ^athe ¹Negev.

Abram and Sarai in Egypt

¹⁰Now there was ^aa famine in the land; so Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was ^bsevere in the land. ¹¹And it happened as he drew near to entering Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, “Now behold, I know that you are a woman ^abeautiful in appearance; ¹²^aand it will be when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill me, but they will let you live. ¹³“Please say that you are ^amy sister so that it may go well with me because of you, and that ¹^,^bI may live on account of you.” ¹⁴Now it happened when Abram came into Egypt, that the Egyptians ¹saw that the woman was very beautiful. ¹⁵And Pharaoh’s officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh; and ^athe woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. ¹⁶Therefore ^ahe treated Abram well because of her; and sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels ¹^,^bcame into his possession.

¹⁷But Yahweh ^astruck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. ¹⁸Then Pharaoh called Abram and said, “^aWhat is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? ¹⁹“Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for myself as a wife? So now, ¹here is your wife, take her and go.” ²⁰So Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they ¹sent him away with his wife and all that belonged to him.

Abram and Lot Separate

13So Abram went up from Egypt to ^athe ¹Negev, he and his wife and all that belonged to him, and Lot with him.

²Now Abram was ^avery rich in livestock, in silver and in gold. ³And he went ¹on his journeys from the ²Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, ^abetween Bethel and Ai, ⁴to the place of the ^aaltar which he had made there formerly; and there Abram called upon the name of Yahweh.

⁵Now ^aLot, who was going with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. ⁶And ^athe land could not ¹sustain them ²while living together, ^bfor their possessions were so abundant that they were not able to live together. ⁷^aAnd there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. Now ^bthe Canaanite and the Perizzite were living then in the land.

⁸^aSo Abram said to Lot, “Please let there be no strife between you and me, nor between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers. ⁹“Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me; if to the left, then I will go to the right; or if to the right, then I will go to the left.” ¹⁰Then Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the ¹^,^avalley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere—this was before Yahweh ^bdestroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—like ^cthe garden of Yahweh, ^dlike the land of Egypt as you go to ^eZoar. ¹¹So Lot chose for himself all the ¹valley of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward. Thus they separated from each other. ¹²Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived in ^athe cities of the ¹valley and moved his tents as far as Sodom. ¹³Now ^athe men of Sodom were evil and ^bsinners, exceedingly so, against Yahweh.

¹⁴And Yahweh said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “^aNow lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, ^bnorthward and southward and eastward and westward; ¹⁵^afor all the land which you see, ^bI will give it to you and to your seed forever. ¹⁶“And I will make your seed ^aas the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your seed can also be numbered. ¹⁷“Arise, ^awalk about the land through its length and breadth; for ^bI will give it to you.” ¹⁸Then Abram moved his tent and came and lived by the ¹^,^aoaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and there he built ^ban altar to Yahweh.

Kings of the Valley Take Lot

14And it happened in the days of Amraphel king of ^aShinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of ^bElam, and Tidal king of ¹Goiim, ²that they made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of ^aAdmah, and Shemeber king of ^bZeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, ^cZoar). ³All these ¹came as allies to ^athe valley of Siddim (that is, ^bthe Salt Sea). ⁴Now for twelve years they had served Chedorlaomer, but the thirteenth year they rebelled. ⁵So in the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him, came and struck the ^aRephaim in ^bAshteroth-karnaim and the Zuzim in Ham and the Emim in ¹^,^cShaveh-kiriathaim, ⁶and the ^aHorites in their Mount Seir, as far as ^bEl-paran, which is by the wilderness. ⁷Then they turned back and came to En-mishpat (that is, ^aKadesh). And they struck all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, who were living in ^bHazazon-tamar. ⁸And the king of Sodom and the king of Gomorrah and the king of Admah and the king of Zeboiim and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) came out; and they arranged themselves for battle against them in ^athe valley of Siddim, ⁹against Chedorlaomer king of Elam and Tidal king of ¹Goiim and Amraphel king of Shinar and Arioch king of Ellasar, four kings against five— ¹⁰now the valley of Siddim was full of tar pits—and ^athe kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and they fell ¹into them; but those who remained behind fled to the ^bhill country. ¹¹Then they took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food supply and departed. ¹²They also took Lot, ^aAbram’s nephew, and his possessions and departed; ^bnow he was living in Sodom.

¹³Then ¹a fugitive came and told Abram the ^aHebrew. Now he was dwelling by the ²^,^boaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and brother of Aner, and these were ³^,^cin a covenant with Abram. ¹⁴So Abram heard that ^ahis ¹relative had been taken captive, and he ²led out his trained men, ^bborn in his house, 318 in number, and went in pursuit as far as ^cDan. ¹⁵^aAnd he divided ¹his men against them by night, he and his servants, and struck them and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is ²north of ^bDamascus. ¹⁶And he ^abrought back all the possessions, and he also brought back ^bhis ¹relative Lot with his possessions and also the women and the people.

Melchizedek Blesses Abram

¹⁷Then after he came back from striking down Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, ^athe king of Sodom went out to meet him at the valley of Shaveh (that is, ^bthe King’s Valley). ¹⁸And ^aMelchizedek king of Salem brought out ^bbread and wine; now he was a ^cpriest of ¹God Most High. ¹⁹Then he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram of ¹God Most High,²^,^aPossessor of heaven and earth;

²⁰And blessed be ¹God Most High,Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” ^aThen he gave him a tenth of all.

²¹And the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give the ¹people to me, but take the possessions for yourself.” ²²Then Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have ¹raised my hand to Yahweh ²^,^aGod Most High, ³^,^bpossessor of heaven and earth, ²³that ^aI will not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, so that you would not say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ ²⁴“¹I will take nothing except what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me, ^aAner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their share.”

Yahweh Cuts a Covenant with Abram

15After these things ^athe word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision, saying, “^bDo not fear, Abram,I am ^ca shield to you;¹Your ^dreward shall be very great.”

²And Abram said, “O Lord Yahweh, what will You give me, as I go on being childless, and the ¹heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³And Abram said, “¹Since You have given no seed to me, behold, ²one ^aborn in my house is my heir.” ⁴Then behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, “This one will not be your heir; ^abut one who will come forth from your own ¹body, he shall be your heir.” ⁵And He brought him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and ^anumber the stars, if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “^bSo shall your seed be.” ⁶^aThen he believed in Yahweh; and He counted it to him as righteousness. ⁷And He said to him, “I am Yahweh who brought you out of ^aUr of the Chaldeans, to ^bgive you this land to ¹possess it.” ⁸And he said, “O Lord Yahweh, ^ahow may I know that I will ¹possess it?” ⁹So He said to him, “¹Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰Then he ¹brought all these to Him and ^asplit them into parts ²down the middle and laid each part opposite the other; but he ^bdid not split apart the birds. ¹¹Then the birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.

¹²Now it happened that when the sun was going down, ^aa deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, ¹terror and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³Then God said to Abram, “Know for certain that ^ayour seed will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, ¹and ^bthey will be enslaved and mistreated ^cfour hundred years. ¹⁴“But I will also judge the nation to whom they are enslaved, and afterward they will come out ^awith ¹many possessions. ¹⁵“As for you, ^ayou shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶“Then in ^athe fourth generation they will return here, for ^bthe iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”

¹⁷Now it happened that the sun had set, and it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which ^apassed between these pieces. ¹⁸On that day Yahweh cut a covenant with Abram, saying, “^aTo your seed I have given this land,From ^bthe river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates:

¹⁹^athe Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite ²⁰and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim ²¹and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.”

Sarai and Hagar

16Now ^aSarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children, and she had ^ban Egyptian servant-woman whose name was Hagar. ²So Sarai said to Abram, “Now behold, Yahweh has shut my womb from bearing children. ^aPlease go in to my servant-woman; perhaps I will ¹obtain children through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. ³And after Abram had ¹lived ^aten years in the land of Canaan, Abram’s wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant-woman, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife. ⁴So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. Then she saw that she had conceived, so her mistress became ¹contemptible in her sight. ⁵And Sarai said to Abram, “^aMay the violence done to me be upon you. I gave my servant-woman into your ¹embrace, but she saw that she had conceived, so I became ²contemptible in her ³sight. ^bMay Yahweh judge between ⁴you and me.” ⁶But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant-woman is in your ¹hand; do to her what is good in your ²sight.” So Sarai afflicted her, and ^ashe fled from her presence.

⁷Now ^athe angel of Yahweh found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to ^bShur. ⁸And he said, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant-woman, ^awhere have you come from and where are you going?” And she said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.” ⁹Then the angel of Yahweh said to her, “Return to your mistress and ¹humble yourself under her hands.” ¹⁰Moreover, the ^aangel of Yahweh said to her, “^bI will greatly multiply your seed so that ¹they will be too many to be counted.” ¹¹And the angel of Yahweh said to her further, “Behold, you ¹are with child,And you will bear a son;And you shall call his name ²Ishmael,Because ^aYahweh has heard your affliction.

¹²“And he will be a ^awild donkey of a man,His hand will be against everyone,And everyone’s hand will be against him;And he will dwell ¹^,^bin the face of all his brothers.”

¹³Then she called the name of Yahweh who spoke to her, “¹You are ²a God who sees”; for she said, “^aHave I even ³remained alive here after seeing Him?” ¹⁴Therefore the well was called ¹Beer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between ^aKadesh and Bered.

¹⁵So Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. ¹⁶Now Abram was ^aeighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to ¹him.

Circumcision, the Sign of the Covenant

17Now it happened that when Abram was ninety-nine years old, ^aYahweh appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am ¹God ^bAlmighty;Walk before Me and be ²^,^cblameless,

²so that I may ¹confirm My ^acovenant between Me and you,And that I may ^bmultiply you exceedingly.”

³Then Abram ^afell on his face, and God spoke with him, saying,

⁴“As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you,And you will be the father of a ^amultitude of nations.⁵“And no longer shall your name be called ¹Abram,But ^ayour name shall be ²Abraham;For ^bI have made you the father of a multitude of nations.

⁶“And I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and ^akings will go forth from you. ⁷“And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your seed after you throughout their generations for an ^aeverlasting covenant, ^bto be God to you and ^cto your seed after you. ⁸“^aAnd I will give to you and to your seed after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and ^bI will be their God.”

⁹God said further to Abraham, “Now as for you, ^ayou shall keep My covenant, you and your seed after you throughout their generations. ¹⁰“^aThis is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your seed after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. ¹¹“And ^ayou shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. ¹²“And every male among you who is ^aeight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, one who is born in the house or one who is bought with money from any foreigner, who is not of your seed. ¹³“A servant who is born in your house or ^awho is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. ¹⁴“But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be ^acut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

Sarah Will Bear Isaac

¹⁵Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but ¹Sarah shall be her name. ¹⁶“And I will bless her, and indeed I will give you ^aa son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; ^bkings of peoples will ¹come from her.” ¹⁷Then Abraham ^afell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, “Will a son be born to a man one hundred years old? And ^bwill Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a son?” ¹⁸And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before You!” ¹⁹But God said, “No, but Sarah your wife will bear you ^aa son, and you shall call his name ¹Isaac; and ^bI will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his seed after him. ²⁰“As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him and ^awill make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. ^bHe shall ¹become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a ^cgreat nation. ²¹“But My covenant I will establish with ^aIsaac, whom ^bSarah will bear to you at this season next year.” ²²So He finished talking with him, and ^aGod went up from Abraham.

²³Then Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all who were ^aborn in his house and all who were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s household, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the very same day, ^bas God had spoken with him. ²⁴Now Abraham was ninety-nine years old when ^ahe was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. ²⁵And ^aIshmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. ²⁶In the very same day Abraham was circumcised, and Ishmael his son. ²⁷Now all the men of his household, who were ^aborn in the house or bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.

Yahweh Appears to Abraham

18Then ^aYahweh appeared to him by the ¹^,^boaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day. ²And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three ^amen were standing nearby; he saw, and he ran from the tent door to meet them, and he bowed himself to the earth, ³and he said, “¹My Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, please do not ²pass Your servant by. ⁴“Please let a little water be brought and ^awash your feet, and ¹rest yourselves under the tree; ⁵and let me ¹^,^abring a piece of bread, that you may ²refresh your hearts; after that you may pass on, since in such a manner you have passed by your servant.” And they said, “So you shall do, as you have said.” ⁶So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, “¹Hurry, prepare ²three seahs of fine flour, knead it, and make bread cakes.” ⁷Abraham also ran to the herd and took a tender and ¹choice calf and gave it to his young man, and he hurried to prepare it. ⁸Then he took curds and milk and the calf which he had prepared, and placed it before them; and he was standing by them under the tree, and they ate.

⁹Then they said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” ¹⁰And He said, “^aI will surely return to you ¹at this time next year; and behold, Sarah your wife will have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door which was behind him. ¹¹Now ^aAbraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; Sarah was ^bpast ¹childbearing. ¹²And Sarah laughed ¹to herself, saying, “^aAfter I am worn out, shall I have pleasure, my ^blord being old also?” ¹³And Yahweh said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I indeed ¹bear a son, when I am so old?’ ¹⁴“^aIs anything too ¹difficult for Yahweh? At the ^bappointed time I will return to you, ²at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.” ¹⁵Then Sarah denied it however, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid. And He said, “No, but you did laugh.”

Yahweh and Abraham Speak About Sodom

¹⁶Then ^athe men rose up from there and looked down toward Sodom; and Abraham was walking with them to send them off. ¹⁷^aNow Yahweh said, “Shall I conceal from Abraham ^bwhat I am about to do, ¹⁸since Abraham will surely become a great and ¹mighty nation, and in him ^aall the nations of the earth will be blessed? ¹⁹“For I have ¹^,^aknown him, so that he may ^bcommand his children and his household after him, ^cthat they keep the way of Yahweh to do righteousness and justice, so that Yahweh may bring upon Abraham ^dwhat He has spoken about him.” ²⁰So Yahweh said, “^aThe outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave. ²¹“I will ^ago down now and see whether they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”

²²Then ^athe men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before ^bYahweh. ²³Then Abraham came near and said, “^aWill You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? ²⁴“Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not ¹spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? ²⁵“Far be it from You to do ¹such a thing, to put to death the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not ^athe Judge of all the earth do justice?” ²⁶So Yahweh said, “^aIf I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will ¹spare the whole place on their account.” ²⁷And Abraham answered and said, “Now behold, I have ¹ventured to speak to the Lord, although I am but ^adust and ashes. ²⁸“Suppose the fifty righteous are lacking five, will You destroy the whole city because of five?” And He said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” ²⁹Then he spoke to Him yet again and said, “Suppose forty are found there?” And He said, “I will not do it on account of the forty.” ³⁰Then he said, “Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak; suppose thirty are found there?” And He said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.” ³¹And he said, “Now behold, I have ¹ventured to speak to the Lord; suppose twenty are found there?” And He said, “I will not destroy it on account of the twenty.” ³²Then he said, “^aOh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak only this once; suppose ten are found there?” And He said, “I will not destroy it on account of the ten.” ³³And as soon as He had finished speaking to Abraham, ^aYahweh departed, and Abraham returned to his place.

Yahweh Destroys Sodom and Gomorrah

19Then the ^atwo angels came to Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. ^bLot saw them and rose to meet them and ¹bowed down with his ²face to the ground. ²And he said, “Now behold, my lords, please turn aside into your servant’s house, and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise early and go on your way.” They said however, “No, but we shall spend the night in the square.” ³Yet he pressed them strongly, so they turned aside to him and entered his house; ^aand he made a feast for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. ⁴Before they lay down, ^athe men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, from young to old, all the people ¹from every quarter; ⁵and they called to Lot and said to him, “^aWhere are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may ¹know them.” ⁶But Lot went out to them at the doorway and shut the door behind him, ⁷and said, “Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly. ⁸“Now behold, ^aI have two daughters who have not known a man; please let me bring them out to you, and do to them what is good in your eyes; only do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the ¹shelter of my roof.” ⁹But they said, “Step aside.” Furthermore, they said, “This one came to sojourn, and already ^ahe is persistently acting like a judge; now we will treat you more wickedly than them.” So they pressed hard against ¹Lot and stepped up to break the door. ¹⁰But ^athe men reached out their ¹hands and brought Lot into the house ²with them and shut the door. ¹¹^aAnd they ¹struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, from small to great, so that they wearied themselves trying to find the doorway.

¹²Then the two men said to Lot, “Whom else have you here? A son-in-law, and your sons, and your daughters, and everyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place; ¹³for we are about to destroy this place because ^atheir outcry has become great before Yahweh, so ^bYahweh has sent us to destroy it.” ¹⁴And Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who ¹were to marry his daughters, and said, “Get up, ^aget out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city.” ^bBut he appeared to his sons-in-law ²to be jesting.

¹⁵Now at the ¹breaking of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the ²punishment of the city.” ¹⁶But he hesitated. So the men ^aseized his hand and the hand of his wife and the ¹hands of his two daughters, for ^bthe compassion of Yahweh was upon him; and they brought him out and put him outside the city. ¹⁷Now it happened, as they brought them outside, ¹one said, “^aEscape for your life! ^bDo not look behind you, and do not stay ²anywhere in the ^cvalley; escape to ^dthe ³mountains, lest you be swept away.” ¹⁸But Lot said to them, “Oh no, my lords! ¹⁹“Now behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your lovingkindness, which you have shown me by preserving my life; but I cannot escape to the ¹mountains, lest calamity overtake me and I die; ²⁰now behold, this town is near enough to flee to, and it is small. Please, let me escape there (is it not small?) ¹that my life may be preserved.” ²¹And he said to him, “Behold, I grant you this ¹request also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. ²²“Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called ¹^,^aZoar.

²³The sun had risen over the earth when Lot came to Zoar. ²⁴And Yahweh ^arained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Yahweh out of heaven, ²⁵and ^aHe overthrew those cities, and all the ¹valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. ²⁶Then his wife, from behind him, ^alooked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

²⁷Now Abraham arose early in the morning and went to ^athe place where he had stood before Yahweh; ²⁸and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the ¹valley, and he saw, and behold, ^athe smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a ²furnace.

²⁹Thus it happened, when God destroyed the cities of the ¹valley, that ^aGod remembered Abraham and ^bsent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.

Lot and His Daughters

³⁰And Lot went up from Zoar and ¹^,^astayed in the ²mountains, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to ³stay in Zoar; and he ⁴stayed in a cave, he and his two daughters. ³¹Then the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man ¹on earth to ^acome in to us after the manner of the earth. ³²“Come, ^alet us make our father drink wine, and let us lie with him that we may preserve our seed through our father.” ³³So they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. ³⁴Now it happened on the following day, that the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; and you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve our seed through our father.” ³⁵So they made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger arose and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. ³⁶Thus both the daughters of Lot conceived by their father. ³⁷And the firstborn bore a son and called his name ^aMoab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day. ³⁸As for the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Ben-ammi; he is the father of the ¹sons of ^aAmmon to this day.

Abraham Lies to Abimelech

20And Abraham journeyed from ^athere toward the land of ^bthe ¹Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur; then he sojourned in ^cGerar. ²And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “^aShe is my sister.” So ^bAbimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. ³^aBut God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night and said to him, “Behold, ^byou are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is ¹married.” ⁴(Now Abimelech had not come near her.) Then he said, “Lord, ^awill You kill a nation, even though righteous? ⁵“Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she ^aherself also said, ‘He is my brother.’ In ^bthe integrity of my heart and the innocence of my ¹hands I have done this.” ⁶Then God said to him in the dream, “Indeed, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also ¹^,^aheld you back from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her. ⁷“So now, return the man’s wife, for ^ahe is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you will live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.”

⁸So Abimelech arose early in the morning and called all his servants and told all these things in their hearing; and the men were greatly afraid. ⁹^aThen Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? And ¹how have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom ^ba great sin? You have done to me ²things that ought not to be done.” ¹⁰And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What have you seen, that you have done this thing?” ¹¹And Abraham said, “Because I said, surely there is no ^afear of God in this place, and ^bthey will kill me because of my wife. ¹²“Besides, she actually is my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife; ¹³and it happened when ^aGod caused me to wander from my father’s house, that I said to her, ‘This is ¹the lovingkindness which you will show to me: ²everywhere we go, ^bsay of me, “He is my brother.”’” ¹⁴^aAbimelech then took sheep and oxen and male and female slaves and gave them to Abraham and returned his wife Sarah to him. ¹⁵And Abimelech said, “^aBehold, my land is before you; ¹settle wherever it is good in your sight.” ¹⁶To Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your ^abrother one thousand pieces of silver; behold, it is ¹your vindication before all who are with you, and before all you are ²cleared.” ¹⁷^aAnd Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maidservants, so that they bore children. ¹⁸^aFor Yahweh had utterly shut all the wombs of the household of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

Isaac Is Born

21^aNow Yahweh visited Sarah as He had said, and Yahweh did for Sarah as He had ¹promised. ²^aSo Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at ^bthe appointed time of which God had spoken to him. ³And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, ^aIsaac. ⁴Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was ^aeight days old, as God had commanded him. ⁵Now Abraham was ^aone hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. ⁶And Sarah said, “God has made ^alaughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh ¹with me.” ⁷And she said, “^aWho would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

Sarah Sends Hagar Away

⁸And the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. ⁹And Sarah saw ^athe son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, ¹^,^blaughing in jest. ¹⁰Therefore she said to Abraham, “^aDrive out this maidservant and her son! The son of this maidservant shall not be an heir with my son, with Isaac.” ¹¹^aAnd the matter ¹distressed Abraham greatly because of his son. ¹²So God said to Abraham, “¹Do not be distressed because of the boy and your maidservant; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice, for ^athrough Isaac your seed shall be named. ¹³“And of ^athe son of the maidservant I will make a nation also, because he is your seed.” ¹⁴So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a ¹skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the child, and sent her away. So she went and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba.

¹⁵When the water in the skin was finished, she ¹put the child under one of the bushes. ¹⁶Then she went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away, for she said, “Do not let me ¹see when the child dies.” And she sat opposite him and ^alifted up her voice and wept. ¹⁷Then God ^aheard the voice of the boy crying; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter with you, Hagar? ^bDo not fear, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. ¹⁸“Arise, lift up the boy, and hold him by ¹the hand, ^afor I will make a great nation of him.” ¹⁹Then God ^aopened her eyes, and she saw ^ba well of water; and she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

²⁰^aAnd God was with the boy, and he grew; and he ¹lived in the wilderness and was an archer. ²¹^aAnd he ¹lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

A Covenant with Abimelech

²²Now it happened at that time, that ^aAbimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham, saying, “^bGod is with you in all that you do; ²³so now, ^aswear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my offspring or with my posterity, but according to the lovingkindness that I have shown you, you shall show me and the land in which you have sojourned.” ²⁴And Abraham said, “I swear it.” ²⁵But Abraham reproved Abimelech about the well of water which the servants of Abimelech ^ahad seized. ²⁶And Abimelech said, “I do not know who has done this thing; you did not tell me, nor did I hear of it ¹until today.”

²⁷So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and ^athe two of them cut a covenant. ²⁸Then Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves. ²⁹And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What do these seven ewe lambs mean, which you have set by themselves?” ³⁰He said, “You shall take these seven ewe lambs from my hand so that it may be a ^awitness to me, that I dug this well.” ³¹Therefore he called that place ^aBeersheba, because there the two of them swore an oath. ³²So they cut a covenant at Beersheba; and Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, arose and returned to the land of the Philistines. ³³And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there ^ahe called upon the name of Yahweh, the ^bEverlasting God. ³⁴And Abraham sojourned ^ain the land of the Philistines for many days.

The Offering of Isaac

22Now it happened after these things, that ^aGod tested Abraham and said to him, “^bAbraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ²Then He said, “Take now ^ayour son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and ^bgo forth to the land of ^cMoriah, and offer him there as a ^dburnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.” ³So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. ⁴On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from a distance. ⁵And Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there; and we will worship, and we will return to you.” ⁶Then Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and ^aput it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.

⁷Then Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the ^alamb for the burnt offering?” ⁸And Abraham said, “God will ¹provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.

⁹Then they came to ^athe place of which God had told him; and Abraham built ^bthe altar there and arranged the wood and bound his son Isaac and ^cput him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. ¹¹But ^athe angel of Yahweh called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ¹²And He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the boy, and do nothing to him; for now ^aI know that you ¹fear God, since you have not withheld ^byour son, your only one, from Me.” ¹³Then Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there was a ram after it had been caught in the thicket by its horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. ¹⁴And Abraham called the name of that place ¹Yahweh Will Provide, as it is said this day, “In the mount of Yahweh ^ait will ²be provided.”

¹⁵Then the angel of Yahweh called to Abraham a second time from heaven, ¹⁶and said, “^aBy Myself I have sworn, declares Yahweh, because you have done this thing and have not spared your son, your only one, ¹⁷indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly ^amultiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as ^bthe sand which is on the seashore; and ^cyour seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. ¹⁸“^aIn your ¹seed all the nations of the earth shall ²be blessed, because you have ^blistened to My voice.” ¹⁹^aSo Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and walked together to Beersheba; and Abraham lived at Beersheba.

²⁰Now it happened after these things, that it was told to Abraham, saying, “Behold, ^aMilcah ¹also has borne children to your brother Nahor: ²¹Uz his firstborn and Buz his brother and Kemuel the father of Aram ²²and Chesed and Hazo and Pildash and Jidlaph and Bethuel.” ²³And Bethuel ¹was the father of ^aRebekah. These eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham’s brother. ²⁴And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, ¹also bore Tebah and Gaham and Tahash and Maacah.

Sarah’s Death and Burial

23And ¹Sarah lived 127 years; these were the years of the life of Sarah. ²Sarah died in ^aKiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan; and Abraham ¹came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. ³Then Abraham rose from before his dead and spoke to the ^asons of Heth, saying, ⁴“I am ^aa sojourner and a foreign resident among you; ^bgive me a ^cpossession for a burial site among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” ⁵And the sons of Heth answered Abraham, saying to him, ⁶“Hear us, my lord, you are a ¹^,^amighty prince among us; bury your dead in the choicest of our burial sites; none of us will refuse you his burial sites for burying your dead.” ⁷So Abraham rose and bowed to the people of the land, the sons of Heth. ⁸And he spoke with them, saying, “If it is your ¹desire for me to bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and meet with ^aEphron the son of Zohar for me, ⁹that he may give me the cave of Machpelah which belongs to him, which is at the end of his field; for the full price let him give it to me in ¹your presence as a possession for a burial site.” ¹⁰Now Ephron was sitting among the sons of Heth; and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the sons of Heth, even ^aof all who went in at the gate of his city, saying, ¹¹“No, my lord, hear me; ^aI give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. In the sight of the sons of my people I give it to you; bury your dead.” ¹²And Abraham bowed before the people of the land. ¹³And he spoke to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, saying, “If you will only please hear me; I will give the silver for the field, accept it from me that I may bury my dead there.” ¹⁴Then Ephron answered Abraham, saying to him, ¹⁵“My lord, hear me; a piece of land worth ¹four hundred ^ashekels of silver, what is that between me and you? So bury your dead.” ¹⁶So Abraham heard Ephron; and Abraham ^aweighed out for Ephron the silver which he had named in the ¹hearing of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, ²commercial standard.

¹⁷So ^aEphron’s field, which was in Machpelah, which faced Mamre, the field and the cave which was in it, and all the trees which were in the field, that were ¹within all the confines of its border, ²were deeded over ¹⁸to Abraham as purchased ^ain the sight of the sons of Heth, before all who came in at the gate of his city. ¹⁹After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field at Machpelah facing Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan. ²⁰So the field and the cave that is in it ¹were ^adeeded over to Abraham for a possession for a burial site by the sons of Heth.

A Wife for Isaac

24Now ^aAbraham was old, advanced in age; and Yahweh had ^bblessed Abraham in every way. ²And Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who ^aruled over all that he owned, “^bPlease place your hand under my thigh, ³and I will make you swear by Yahweh, ^athe God of heaven and the God of earth, that you ^bshall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of ^cthe Canaanites, among whom I live, ⁴but you will go to ^amy land and to my kin, and take a wife for my son Isaac.” ⁵And the servant said to him, “Suppose the woman is not willing to follow me to this land; should I indeed take your son back to the land from where you came?” ⁶Then Abraham said to him, “^aBeware lest you take my son back there! ⁷“^aYahweh, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my kin, and who spoke to me and who swore to me, saying, ‘^bTo your seed I will give this land,’ He will send ^cHis angel before you, and you will take a wife for my son from there. ⁸“But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will ^abe free from this oath of mine; ^bonly do not take my son back there.” ⁹So the servant ^aplaced his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master and swore to him concerning this matter.

¹⁰Then the servant took ten camels from the camels of his master, and he went with all kinds of ^agood things of his master’s in his hand. So he arose and went to ¹Mesopotamia, to ^bthe city of Nahor. ¹¹And he made the camels kneel down outside the city by ^athe well of water at evening time, ^bthe time when the women go out to draw water. ¹²And he said, “^aO Yahweh, the God of my master Abraham, please ^bcause this to happen before me today, and show lovingkindness to my master Abraham. ¹³“Behold, ^aI am standing by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water; ¹⁴now may it be that the young woman to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar so that I may drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I will give water to your camels to drink also’—may she be the one whom You have decided for Your servant Isaac; and by this I will know that You have shown lovingkindness to my master.”

Rebekah Goes with Abraham’s Servant

¹⁵^aAnd before he had finished speaking, behold, ^bRebekah who was born to Bethuel the son of ^cMilcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor, was coming out with her jar on her shoulder. ¹⁶Now the young woman was ^avery beautiful in appearance, a virgin, and no man had ¹known her; and she went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up. ¹⁷Then the servant ran to meet her and said, “^aPlease give me a little water to drink from your jar.” ¹⁸^aAnd she said, “Drink, my lord”; and she quickly lowered her jar to her hand and gave him a drink. ¹⁹Now when she had finished giving him a drink, ^ashe said, “I will draw also for your camels until they have finished drinking.” ²⁰So she hurried and emptied her jar into the watering channel and ran again to the well to draw, and she drew for all his camels. ²¹^aMeanwhile, the man was gazing at her ¹in silence, to know whether Yahweh had made his journey successful or not.

²²Now it happened that when the camels had finished drinking, the man took a ^agold ring weighing a ¹half-shekel and two bracelets for her ²wrists weighing ten shekels in gold, ²³and said, “Whose daughter are you? Please tell me, is there a place for us to lodge in your father’s house?” ²⁴And she said to him, “^aI am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.” ²⁵And she said to him, “We have plenty of both straw and feed, and a place to lodge in.” ²⁶Then the man ^abowed low and worshiped Yahweh. ²⁷And he said, “^aBlessed be Yahweh, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken ^bHis lovingkindness and His truth toward my master; as for me, ^cYahweh has guided me in the way to the house of my master’s brothers.”

²⁸Then ^athe young woman ran and told her mother’s household about these things. ²⁹Now Rebekah had a brother whose name was ^aLaban; and Laban ran outside to the man at the spring. ³⁰Now it happened, when he saw the ring and the bracelets on his sister’s ¹wrists, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, “²This is what the man said to me,” he came out to the man; and behold, he was standing by the camels at the spring. ³¹And he said, “^aCome in, ^bblessed of Yahweh! Why do you stand outside since ^cI have prepared the house and a place for the camels?” ³²So the man came into the house. Then ¹^,^aLaban unloaded the camels, and he gave straw and feed to the camels, and water to wash his feet and the feet of the men who were with him. ³³Then food was set before him to eat, but he said, “I will not eat until I have spoken my words.” And he said, “Speak!” ³⁴So he said, “I am ^aAbraham’s servant. ³⁵“And Yahweh has greatly ^ablessed my master, so he has become great; and He has given him ^bflocks and herds, and silver and gold, and male slaves and female slaves, and camels and donkeys. ³⁶“Now ^aSarah my master’s wife bore a son to my master ¹in her old age, and ^bhe has given him all that he has. ³⁷“^aAnd my master made me swear, saying, ‘You shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I ¹live; ³⁸but you shall go to my father’s house and to my family, and take a wife for my son.’ ³⁹“^aThen I said to my master, ‘Suppose the woman does not follow me.’ ⁴⁰“And he said to me, ‘^aYahweh, before whom I have ^bwalked, will send ^cHis angel with you and will make your journey successful, and you will take a wife for my son from my family and from my father’s house. ⁴¹^aThen you will be free from my oath, when you come to my relatives. Now if they do not give her to you, you will be free from my oath.’

⁴²“So ^aI came today to the spring and said, ‘O Yahweh, the God of my master Abraham, if now You will make my journey on which I go ^bsuccessful; ⁴³behold, ^aI am standing by the spring of water, and may it be that the ¹maiden who comes out to draw, and to whom I say, “^bPlease let me drink a little water from your jar”; ⁴⁴and she will say to me, “You drink, and I will draw for your camels also”; she is the woman whom Yahweh has decided upon for my master’s son.’

⁴⁵“Before I had finished ^aspeaking in my heart, behold, ^bRebekah was coming out with her jar on her shoulder, and she went down to the spring and drew, and ^cI said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’ ⁴⁶“Then she hurried and lowered her jar from her shoulder and said, ‘^aDrink, and I will also give water to your camels to drink’; so I drank, and she also gave water to the camels to drink. ⁴⁷“^aThen I asked her and said, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ And she said, ‘The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bore to him’; and I put the ^bring on her nose and the bracelets on her ¹wrists. ⁴⁸“And I ^abowed low and worshiped Yahweh; and I blessed Yahweh, the God of my master Abraham, ^bwho had guided me in the true way to take the daughter of my master’s ¹relative for his son. ⁴⁹“So now if you are going to ^ashow lovingkindness and truth with my master, tell me; and if not, tell me, that I may turn to the right or to the left.”

⁵⁰Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, “^aThe matter comes from Yahweh; ^bso we cannot speak to you bad or good. ⁵¹“Behold, Rebekah is before you, take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master’s son, as Yahweh has spoken.”

⁵²Now it happened that when Abraham’s servant heard their words, he ^abowed himself to the ground ¹before Yahweh. ⁵³The servant brought out ^aarticles of silver and articles of gold, and garments, and gave them to Rebekah; he also gave precious things to her brother and to her mother. ⁵⁴Then he and the men who were with him ate and drank and spent the night. And then they arose in the morning, and he said, “^aSend me away to my master.” ⁵⁵But her brother and her mother said, “^aLet the young woman stay with us a few days, or even ten; afterward she will go.” ⁵⁶And he said to them, “Do not delay me, since ^aYahweh has made my way successful. Send me away that I may go to my master.” ⁵⁷And they said, “We will call the young woman and ask about ¹her wishes.” ⁵⁸Then they called Rebekah and said to her, “Will you go with this man?” And she said, “I will go.” ⁵⁹Thus they sent away their sister Rebekah and ^aher nurse with Abraham’s servant and his men. ⁶⁰And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, “May you, our sister,^aBecome thousands of ten thousands,And may ^byour seed possessThe gate of those who hate him.”

⁶¹Then Rebekah arose with her young women, and they mounted the camels and went after the man. So the servant took Rebekah and went.

Rebekah Becomes Isaac’s Wife

⁶²Now Isaac had come from going to ^aBeer-lahai-roi, for he ¹was living in ^bthe land of the ²Negev. ⁶³And Isaac went out ^ato ¹muse in the field toward evening; and ^bhe lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, camels were coming. ⁶⁴And Rebekah lifted up her eyes and saw Isaac and dismounted from the camel. ⁶⁵Then she said to the servant, “Who is that man walking in the field to meet us?” And the servant said, “He is my master.” Then she took her ¹veil and covered herself. ⁶⁶And the servant recounted to Isaac all the things that he had done. ⁶⁷Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and ^ahe took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and ^bhe loved her. Thus, Isaac was comforted after ^chis mother’s death.

The Death of Abraham

25Now Abraham took another wife, ¹whose name was Keturah. ²^aAnd she bore to him Zimran and Jokshan and Medan and Midian and Ishbak and Shuah. ³Now Jokshan ¹was the father of Sheba and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim and Letushim and Leummim. ⁴And the sons of Midian were Ephah and Epher and Hanoch and Abida and Eldaah. All these were the sons of Keturah. ⁵^aAnd Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac; ⁶but to the sons of the concubines which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts while he was still living, and he ^asent them away from his son Isaac eastward, to the land of the east.

⁷These are the days of the years of Abraham’s life that he lived, ^a175 years. ⁸And Abraham breathed his last and died ^ain a good old age, an old man and full of days; and he was ^bgathered to his people. ⁹Then his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in ^athe cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, facing Mamre, ¹⁰^athe field which Abraham bought from the sons of Heth; there Abraham was buried with Sarah his wife. ¹¹Now it happened after the death of Abraham, that ^aGod blessed his son Isaac; and Isaac ¹lived by ^bBeer-lahai-roi.

The Generations of Ishmael

¹²Now these are the generations of ^aIshmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s servant-woman, bore to Abraham; ¹³and these are the names of ^athe sons of Ishmael, by their names, ¹in the order of their birth: Nebaioth, the firstborn of Ishmael, and Kedar and Adbeel and Mibsam ¹⁴and Mishma and Dumah and Massa, ¹⁵Hadad and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. ¹⁶These are the sons of Ishmael and these are their names, by their villages, and by their camps; ^atwelve princes according to their ¹tribes. ¹⁷These are the years of the life of Ishmael, ^a137 years; and he breathed his last and died and was ^bgathered to his people. ¹⁸And they dwelt from ^aHavilah to ^bShur which is ¹east of Egypt ²as one goes toward Assyria; ^che ³settled in the face of all his brothers.

The Generations of Isaac

¹⁹Now these are ^athe generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham ¹became the father of Isaac; ²⁰and Isaac was forty years old when he took ^aRebekah, the ^bdaughter of Bethuel the ¹Aramean of Paddan-aram, the ^csister of Laban the ²Aramean, to be his wife. ²¹And Isaac entreated Yahweh on behalf of his wife because she was barren; and ^aYahweh ¹was moved by his entreaty. So Rebekah his wife ^bconceived. ²²But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is so, why then am I this way?” So she went to ^ainquire of Yahweh. ²³And Yahweh said to her, “^aTwo nations are in your womb;^bAnd two peoples will be separated from your body;And one people shall be stronger than the other;And ^cthe older shall serve the younger.”

²⁴And her days to give birth were fulfilled, and behold, there were twins in her womb. ²⁵And the first came forth red, ^aall over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau. ²⁶Afterward his brother came forth with ^ahis hand holding on to Esau’s heel, so ^bhis name was called ¹Jacob; and Isaac was ^csixty years old when she gave birth to them.

Esau Sells His Birthright

²⁷And the boys grew up; Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a ¹peaceful man, ²^,^aliving in tents. ²⁸Isaac loved Esau because ¹he had ^aan appetite for hunted game, ^bbut Rebekah loved Jacob.

²⁹And Jacob had cooked ^astew. And Esau came in from the field, and he was ¹famished. ³⁰Then Esau said to Jacob, “Please give me a swallow from the red stuff—¹this red stuff, for I am ²famished.” Therefore his name was called ³Edom. ³¹But Jacob said, “¹First sell me your ^abirthright.” ³²And Esau said, “Behold, I am about to die; so of what use then is the birthright to me?” ³³And Jacob said, “¹First swear to me”; so he swore to him and ^asold his birthright to Jacob. ³⁴So Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he ate and drank and rose and went away. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

Yahweh Establishes the Oath with Isaac

26Now there was ^aa famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to ^bAbimelech king of the Philistines. ²And Yahweh ^aappeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; ^bdwell in the land of which I shall tell you. ³“Sojourn in this land, and ^aI will be with you and ^bbless you, for ^cto you and to your seed I will give all these lands, and I will establish ^dthe oath which I swore to your father Abraham. ⁴“^aAnd I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and I will give your seed all these lands; and ^bby your seed all the nations of the earth ¹shall be blessed; ⁵because Abraham ^alistened to My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”

Isaac and Abimelech

⁶So Isaac ¹lived in Gerar. ⁷Then the men of the place asked about his wife. And he said, “^aShe is my sister,” for he was ^bafraid to say, “my wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is ^cbeautiful in appearance.” ⁸Now it happened, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out through a window and saw, and behold, Isaac was ¹caressing his wife Rebekah. ⁹Then Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, surely she is your wife! How then did you say, ‘She is my sister’?” And Isaac said to him, “Because I said, ‘Lest I die on account of her.’” ¹⁰^aAnd Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” ¹¹So Abimelech commanded all the people, saying, “He who ^atouches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”

¹²And Isaac sowed in that land and ¹reaped in the same year one hundredfold. And ^aYahweh blessed him, ¹³and the man ^abecame great and continued to grow greater until he became very great; ¹⁴and ^ahe had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and many servants, so that the Philistines were jealous of him. ¹⁵Now ^aall the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines stopped up ¹by filling them with earth. ¹⁶Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are ¹^,^atoo mighty for us.” ¹⁷And Isaac departed from there and camped in the valley of Gerar and ¹settled there.

The Quarrel over the Wells

¹⁸Then Isaac dug again the wells of water which ¹had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, but the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he ²called them by the same names by which his father had called them. ¹⁹Then Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of ¹flowing water. ²⁰And the herdsmen of Gerar ^acontended with the herdsmen of Isaac, saying, “The water is ours!” So he named the well ¹Esek, because they quarreled with him. ²¹Then they dug another well, and they contended over it also, so he called it ¹Sitnah. ²²Then he moved away from there and dug another well, and they did not contend over it; so he named it ¹Rehoboth, and he said, “²^,^aAt last Yahweh has made ³room for us, and we will be ^bfruitful in the land.”

²³And he went up from there to ^aBeersheba. ²⁴And Yahweh ^aappeared to him that night and said, “^bI am the God of your father Abraham;^cDo not fear, for I am with you.I ^dwill bless you and multiply your seed,For the sake of My servant Abraham.”

²⁵So he built an ^aaltar there and called upon the name of Yahweh and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug out a well.

Isaac’s Oath with Abimelech

²⁶Now ^aAbimelech came to him from Gerar ¹with his adviser Ahuzzath and Phicol the commander of his army. ²⁷And Isaac said to them, “^aWhy have you come to me, since you hate me and have sent me away from you?” ²⁸Then they said, “We see plainly ^athat Yahweh has been with you; so we said, ‘Let there now be an oath between us—between ¹you and us—and let us cut a covenant with you, ²⁹that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you ¹and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the ^ablessed of Yahweh.’” ³⁰Then ^ahe made them a feast, and they ate and drank. ³¹In the morning they arose early, and ^aeach swore to ¹the other; then Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace. ³²Now it happened on that day, that Isaac’s servants came in and told him about the well which they had dug and said to him, “We have found water.” ³³So he called it Shibah; therefore the name of the city is ^aBeersheba to this day.

³⁴And Esau was forty years old, ^aand he took as a wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and also Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite; ³⁵and ^athey ¹brought bitterness to Isaac and Rebekah.

Isaac Calls to Bless Esau

27Now it happened that when Isaac was old and ^ahis eyes were too dim to see, that he called his ^bolder son Esau and said to him, “My son.” And he said to him, “Here I am.” ²¹^,^aAnd Isaac said, “Behold now, I am old, and I do not know the day of my death. ³“So now, please take up your gear, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and ^ahunt game for me; ⁴and prepare a savory dish for me such as I love, and bring it to me that I may eat, so that ^amy soul may bless you before I die.”

⁵Now Rebekah was listening while Isaac was speaking to his son Esau. Then Esau went to the field to hunt for game to bring to Isaac. ⁶^aBut Rebekah spoke to her son Jacob, saying, “Behold, I heard your father speaking to your brother Esau, saying, ⁷‘Bring me some game and prepare a savory dish for me, that I may eat and bless you in the presence of Yahweh before my death.’ ⁸“So now, my son, ^alisten to my voice ¹as I command you. ⁹“Go now to the flock and ¹get for me two choice ²young goats from there, that I may prepare them as a savory dish for your father, such as he loves. ¹⁰“Then you shall bring it to your father, that he may eat, so that he may bless you before his death.” ¹¹Then Jacob ¹answered his mother Rebekah, “Behold, Esau my brother is a ^ahairy man, and I am a smooth man. ¹²“^aPerhaps my father will feel me, then I will be as a mocker in his sight, and I will bring upon myself a curse and not a blessing.” ¹³But his mother said to him, “Your curse be on me, my son; only ^alisten to my voice, and go, get them for me.” ¹⁴So he went and got them and brought them to his mother; and his mother made a savory dish such as his father loved. ¹⁵Then Rebekah took the ¹best ^agarments of Esau her elder son, which were with her in the house, and she put them on Jacob her younger son. ¹⁶And she put the skins of the ¹young goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. ¹⁷She also gave the savory dish and the bread, which she had prepared into the hand of her son Jacob.

Isaac Blesses Jacob and Esau

¹⁸Then he came to his father and said, “My father.” And he said, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?” ¹⁹And Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn; I have done as you told me. ^aRise up, please, sit and eat of my game, that ^byour soul may bless me.” ²⁰Then Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” And he said, “^aBecause Yahweh your God caused it to happen to me.” ²¹Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come near, that ^aI may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not.” ²²So Jacob came near to Isaac his father, and he felt him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” ²³And he did not recognize him because his hands were ^ahairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him. ²⁴And he said, “Are you really my son Esau?” And he said, “I am.” ²⁵So he said, “Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son’s game, that ^amy soul may bless you.” And he brought it near to him, and he ate; he also brought him wine, and he drank. ²⁶Then his father Isaac said to him, “Please come near and kiss me, my son.” ²⁷So he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his garments, and then he ^ablessed him and said, “See, ^bthe smell of my sonIs like the smell of a field ^cwhich Yahweh has blessed;

²⁸Now may ^aGod give you of the dew of heaven,And of the ^bfatness of the earth,And an abundance of grain and new wine;²⁹^aMay peoples serve you,And nations bow down to you;^bBe master of your brothers,^cAnd may your mother’s sons bow down to you.^dCursed be those who curse you,And blessed be those who bless you.”

³⁰Now it happened that as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had hardly gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. ³¹Then he also made a savory dish and brought it to his father; and he said to his father, “^aLet my father arise and eat of his son’s game, that ^byour soul may bless me.” ³²And Isaac his father said to him, “^aWho are you?” And he said, “I am your son, ^byour firstborn, Esau.” ³³Then Isaac ¹trembled exceedingly violently and said, “^aWho was he then that hunted game and brought it to me, so that I ate of all of it before you came and blessed him? ^bIndeed, he shall be blessed.” ³⁴As Esau heard the words of his father, ^ahe cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me, me also, O my father!” ³⁵And he said, “^aYour brother came deceitfully and has taken away your blessing.” ³⁶Then he said, “¹Is he not rightly named ^aJacob, for he has supplanted me these two times? He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.” And he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” ³⁷But Isaac answered and said to Esau, “Behold, I have made him ^ayour master, and all his fellow brothers I have given to him ¹as servants; and with grain and new wine I have sustained him. Now as for you then, what can I do, my son?” ³⁸And Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father.” So Esau lifted his voice and ^awept.

³⁹Then ^aIsaac his father answered and said to him, “Behold, ¹^,^baway from the fatness of the earth shall be your habitation,And ²away from the dew of heaven from above.

⁴⁰“By your sword you shall live,And your brother ^ayou shall serve;But it shall be ^bwhen you become restless,That you will ¹break his yoke from your neck.”

⁴¹So Esau ^abore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him; and Esau said in his heart, “^bThe days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” ⁴²Then the words of her elder son Esau were told to Rebekah. So she sent and called her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Behold, your brother Esau is consoling himself concerning you by planning to kill you. ⁴³“So now, my son, ^alisten to my voice, and arise, ¹flee to ^bHaran, to my brother ^cLaban! ⁴⁴“Stay with him ^aa few days, until your brother’s wrath ¹subsides, ⁴⁵until your brother’s anger ¹against you subsides and he forgets ^awhat you did to him. Then I will send and get you from there. Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?”

⁴⁶Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am tired of ¹living because of ^athe daughters of Heth; ^bif Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, like these, from the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?”

Jacob Is Sent to Laban

28So 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 ¹^,^aGod 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. ¹²^aThen 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 ¹^,^aBethel; 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 ¹^,^cfood 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.”

Jacob’s Love for Rachel

29Then Jacob ¹took up his journey and came to the land of ^athe sons of the east. ²And he looked, and behold, ^aa well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it, for from that well they gave water to the flocks to drink. Now the stone on the mouth of the well was large. ³And all the flocks would be gathered there, and they would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and give water to the sheep to drink and return the stone back to its place on the mouth of the well.

⁴And Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where are you from?” And they said, “We are from ^aHaran.” ⁵Then he said to them, “Do you know Laban the ^ason of Nahor?” And they said, “We know him.” ⁶And he said to them, “Is it well with him?” And they said, “It is well, and here is ^aRachel his daughter coming with the sheep.” ⁷And he said, “Behold, it is still high day; it is not time for the livestock to be gathered. Give water to the sheep to drink, and go, pasture them.” ⁸But they said, “We cannot, until all the flocks are gathered, and they roll the stone from the mouth of the well; then we give water to the sheep to drink.”

⁹While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess. ¹⁰Now it happened, when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, Jacob came near and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and gave water to the flock of Laban his mother’s brother to drink. ¹¹Then Jacob ^akissed Rachel and lifted his voice and wept. ¹²And Jacob told Rachel that he was a ¹^,^arelative of her father and that he was Rebekah’s son, and ^bshe ran and told her father.

¹³So it happened that when ^aLaban heard the report of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and he ^bembraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Then he recounted to Laban all these things. ¹⁴And Laban said to him, “Surely you are ^amy bone and my flesh.” And he stayed with him one month.

¹⁵Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my ¹relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall ^ayour wages be?” ¹⁶Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. ¹⁷And Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was ^abeautiful in form and beautiful in appearance. ¹⁸Now Jacob ^aloved Rachel, so he said, “^bI will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” ¹⁹And Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than to give her to another man; stay with me.” ²⁰So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they were in his sight but a few days ^abecause of his love for her.

Laban Deceives Jacob

²¹Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may ^ago in to her.” ²²And Laban gathered all the men of the place and made a feast. ²³Now it happened in the evening that he took his daughter Leah and brought her to him; and Jacob went in to her. ²⁴Laban also gave his servant-woman Zilpah to his daughter Leah as a servant-woman. ²⁵Now it happened in the morning that, behold, it was Leah! And he said to Laban, “^aWhat is this you have done to me? Was it not for Rachel that I served with you? Why then have you ^bdeceived me?” ²⁶But Laban said, “It is not ¹the practice in our place to give the younger before the firstborn. ²⁷“Fulfill the week of this one, and we will give you the other also for the service which ^ayou shall serve with me for another seven years.” ²⁸And Jacob did so and fulfilled her week, and he gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife. ²⁹Laban also gave his servant-woman Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her servant-woman. ³⁰So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and indeed ^ahe loved Rachel more than Leah, and he served with ¹Laban for ^banother seven years.

³¹And Yahweh saw that Leah was ¹unloved, and He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. ³²So Leah conceived and bore a son and named him ¹Reuben, for she said, “Because Yahweh has ²^,^aseen my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.” ³³Then she conceived again and bore a son and said, “^aBecause Yahweh has ¹heard that I am ²unloved, He has therefore given me this son also.” So she named him Simeon. ³⁴And she conceived again and bore a son and said, “Now this time my husband will be ¹joined to me because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore he was named ^aLevi. ³⁵And she conceived again and bore a son and said, “This time I will ¹praise Yahweh.” Therefore she named him ²^,^aJudah. Then she stopped bearing.

The Sons of Jacob

30Then Rachel saw that ^ashe bore Jacob no children, so ¹she became jealous of her sister; and she said to Jacob, “^bGive me children, or else I die.” ²Then Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has ^awithheld from you the fruit of the womb?” ³And she said, “^aHere is my maidservant Bilhah, go in to her that she may ^bbear on my knees, that ¹^,^cthrough her I too may obtain children.” ⁴So ^ashe gave him her servant-woman Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her. ⁵And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. ⁶Then Rachel said, “God has ¹^,^arendered justice to me and has indeed listened to my voice and has given me a son.” Therefore she named him ²Dan. ⁷And Rachel’s servant-woman Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. ⁸So Rachel said, “With ¹mighty wrestlings I have ²wrestled with my sister, and I have indeed prevailed.” And she named him Naphtali.

⁹Then Leah saw that she had stopped bearing, so she took her servant-woman Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. ¹⁰And Leah’s servant-woman Zilpah bore Jacob a son. ¹¹Then Leah said, “¹How fortunate!” So she named him ²Gad. ¹²And Leah’s servant-woman Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. ¹³Then Leah said, “¹Happy am I! For women ^awill call me happy.” So she named him ²Asher.

¹⁴And in the days of the wheat harvest, Reuben went and found ^amandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.” ¹⁵But she said to her, “Is it a small matter for you to take my husband? And would you take my son’s mandrakes also?” So Rachel said, “Therefore he will lie with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.” ¹⁶Then Jacob came in from the field in the evening. And Leah went out to meet him and said, “You must come in to me, for I have surely hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he lay with her that night. ¹⁷And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. ¹⁸And Leah said, “God has given me my ¹wages because I gave my servant-woman to my husband.” So she named him Issachar. ¹⁹Then Leah conceived again and bore a sixth son to Jacob. ²⁰And Leah said, “God has gifted me a good gift; this time my husband ¹will honor me because I have borne him six sons.” So she named him Zebulun. ²¹Afterward she bore a daughter and named her Dinah.

²²Then ^aGod remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and ^bopened her womb. ²³So she conceived and bore a son and said, “God has ^ataken away my reproach.” ²⁴And she named him Joseph, saying, “^aMay Yahweh ¹give me another son.”

Jacob Names His Wages

²⁵Now it happened when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, “^aSend me away, that I may go to my own place and to my own land. ²⁶“Give me my wives and my children ^afor whom I have served you, and let me go; for you yourself know my service which I have ¹rendered you.” ²⁷But Laban said to him, “If now I have found favor in your sight, stay with me; I have interpreted an omen ^athat Yahweh has blessed me on your account.” ²⁸And he continued to say, “^aName me your wages, and I will give it.” ²⁹But he said to him, “^aYou yourself know how I have served you and how your livestock have ¹fared with me. ³⁰“For you had little before ¹I came, but it has ^aspread out to a multitude, and Yahweh has blessed you ²at every step of mine. But now, when shall I provide for my own household also?” ³¹So he said, “What shall I give you?” And Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this one thing for me, I will again pasture and keep your flock: ³²let me pass through your entire flock today, removing from there every ^aspeckled and spotted sheep and every black ¹one among the lambs and the spotted and speckled among the goats; and such shall be my wages. ³³“So my righteousness will answer for me later, when you come concerning my ¹wages. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, will be considered stolen.” ³⁴And Laban said, “Behold, ¹let it be according to your word.” ³⁵So he removed on that day the striped and spotted male goats and all the speckled and spotted female goats, every one with white in it, and all the black ones among the sheep, and gave them into the ¹care of his sons. ³⁶And he put a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob was pasturing the rest of Laban’s flocks.

³⁷Then Jacob ¹took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane trees, and he peeled white stripes in them, exposing the white which was ²in the rods. ³⁸And he set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the trough, that is, in the watering channels, where the flocks came to drink; and they ¹mated when they came to drink. ³⁹So the flocks ¹mated by the rods, and the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. ⁴⁰And Jacob separated the lambs, and he ¹made the flocks face toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban; and he set his own herds apart and did not set them with Laban’s flock. ⁴¹Now it would be that, whenever the ¹stronger of the flock ²were mating, Jacob would place the rods in the sight of the flock in the trough, so that they might ³mate by the rods; ⁴²but when the flock was feeble, he did not put them in; so the feebler were Laban’s and the ¹stronger Jacob’s. ⁴³So ^athe man ^bspread out exceedingly and had large flocks and female and male servants and camels and donkeys.

Jacob Leaves While Laban Is Gone

31Then ¹Jacob heard the words of Laban’s sons, saying, “Jacob has taken away all that belonged to our father, and from what belonged to our father he has made all this ²wealth.” ²And Jacob saw the face of Laban, and behold, it was not friendly toward him as formerly. ³Then Yahweh said to Jacob, “^aReturn to the land of your fathers and to your kin, and ^bI will be with you.” ⁴So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to his flock in the field, ⁵and he said to them, “^aI see your father’s face, that it is not friendly toward me as formerly, but ^bthe God of my father has been with me. ⁶“^aYou also know that I have served your father with all my power. ⁷“Yet your father has ^acheated me and ^bchanged my wages ten times; however, ^cGod did not allow him to harm me. ⁸“If ^ahe spoke thus, ‘The speckled shall be your wages,’ then all the flock bore speckled; and if he spoke thus, ‘The striped shall be your wages,’ then all the flock bore striped. ⁹“Thus God has ^adelivered your father’s livestock and given them to me. ¹⁰“Now it happened at the time when the flock were ¹mating that I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream, and behold, the male goats which were ²mating were striped, speckled, and mottled. ¹¹“Then ^athe angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Here I am.’ ¹²“He said, ‘Lift up now your eyes and see that all the male goats which are ¹mating are striped, speckled, and mottled; for ^aI have seen all that Laban has been doing to you. ¹³‘I am ^athe God of Bethel, where you ^banointed a pillar, where you made a vow to Me; now arise, ¹leave this land, and ^creturn to the land of your kin.’” ¹⁴Then Rachel and Leah said to him, “Do we still have any portion or inheritance in our father’s house? ¹⁵“Are we not counted by him as foreigners? For ^ahe has sold us and has also ¹entirely consumed ²our purchase price. ¹⁶“Surely all the riches which God has delivered over to us from our father belong to us and our children; now then, do whatever God has said to you.”

¹⁷Then Jacob arose and put his children and his wives upon camels; ¹⁸and he drove away all his livestock and all his possessions which he had accumulated, his acquired livestock which he had accumulated in Paddan-aram, in order ^ato go to the land of Canaan to his father Isaac. ¹⁹Now Laban had gone to shear his flock. Then Rachel stole the ¹^,^ahousehold idols that were her father’s. ²⁰And Jacob ¹deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was fleeing. ²¹So he fled with all that he had; and he arose and crossed the ¹River and set his face toward the hill country of ^aGilead.

Laban Pursues Jacob

²²Then it was told to Laban on the third day that Jacob had fled; ²³so he took his ¹relatives with him and pursued him a distance of seven days’ journey, and he overtook him in the hill country of Gilead. ²⁴^aAnd God came to Laban the Aramean in a ^bdream of the night and said to him, “¹^,^cBeware lest you speak to Jacob either good or bad.”

²⁵So Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his ¹relatives camped in the hill country of Gilead. ²⁶Then Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done ¹by deceiving me and carrying away my daughters like captives of the sword? ²⁷“Why did you flee secretly and ¹deceive me and not tell me—so that I might have sent you away with gladness and with songs, with ^atambourine and with ^blyre— ²⁸and not allow me ^ato kiss my sons and my daughters? Now you have acted foolishly. ²⁹“It is in my hand to do evil against you, but ^athe God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘¹^,^bBeware of speaking either good or evil to Jacob.’ ³⁰“So now you have indeed gone away because you longed greatly for your father’s house; but why did you steal ^amy gods?” ³¹Then Jacob answered and said to Laban, “Because I was afraid, because I said, ‘Lest you take your daughters from me by force.’ ³²“^aThe one with whom you find your gods shall not live; in the presence of our ¹relatives recognize what is yours ²among my belongings and take it for yourself.” But Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.

³³So Laban went into Jacob’s tent and into Leah’s tent and into the tent of the two maidservants, but he did not find them. Then he went out of Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s tent. ³⁴Now Rachel had taken the ¹household idols and put them in the camel’s saddle, and she sat on them. And Laban felt through all the tent but did not find them. ³⁵And she said to her father, “Let not my lord be angry that I cannot ^arise before you, for the manner of women is upon me.” So he searched but did not find the ¹^,^bhousehold idols.

³⁶Then Jacob became angry and contended with Laban; and Jacob answered and said to Laban, “What is my transgression? What is my sin that you have hotly pursued me? ³⁷“Though you have felt through all my goods, what have you found of all your household goods? Place it here before my ¹relatives and your ²relatives, that they may decide between us two. ³⁸“These twenty years I have been with you; your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten the rams of your flocks. ³⁹“That which was torn of beasts I did not bring to you; I bore the loss of it myself. You required it of my hand whether stolen by day or stolen by night. ⁴⁰“Thus I was: by day the ¹heat consumed me and the frost by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. ⁴¹“These twenty years I have been in your house; ^aI served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flock, and you ^bchanged my wages ten times. ⁴²“If ^athe God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the dread of Isaac, had not been for me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. ^bGod has seen my affliction and the toil of my hands, so He ^crendered the decision last night.”

The Covenant at Mizpah

⁴³Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, and the children are my children, and ^athe flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day to these daughters of mine or to their children whom they have borne? ⁴⁴“So now come, let us ^acut a covenant, ¹you and I, and ^blet it be a witness between ²you and me.” ⁴⁵Then Jacob took ^aa stone and raised it up as a pillar. ⁴⁶And Jacob said to his ¹relatives, “Gather stones.” So they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap. ⁴⁷And Laban ^acalled it ¹Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it ²Galeed. ⁴⁸Then Laban said, “^aThis heap is a witness between ¹you and me this day.” Therefore it was named Galeed, ⁴⁹and ¹^,^aMizpah, for he said, “May Yahweh watch between ²you and me when we are ³absent one from the other. ⁵⁰“If you afflict my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no man is with us, see, ^aGod is witness between ¹you and me.” ⁵¹And Laban said to Jacob, “Behold this heap and behold the pillar which I have set between ¹you and me. ⁵²“This heap is a witness, and the pillar is a witness, that I will not pass by this heap to you for harm, and you will not pass by this heap and this pillar to me for harm. ⁵³“^aThe God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, ^bjudge between us.” So Jacob swore by ^cthe dread of his father Isaac. ⁵⁴Then Jacob ^aoffered a sacrifice on the mountain and called his ¹relatives to eat a ²meal; and they ate ³the meal and spent the night on the mountain. ⁵⁵¹And Laban arose early in the morning and ^akissed his sons and his daughters and blessed them. Then Laban departed and returned to his place.

Jacob’s Fear of Esau

32Now Jacob went on his way, ^aand the angels of God met him. ²Then Jacob said when he saw them, “This is God’s ¹camp.” So he named that place ²^,^aMahanaim.

³Then Jacob ^asent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of ^bSeir, the ¹country of ^cEdom. ⁴He also commanded them saying, “Thus you shall say to my lord, to Esau: ‘Thus says your servant Jacob, “I have sojourned with Laban and have been ^adelayed until now; ⁵^aand I have oxen and donkeys and flocks and male and female slaves; and I have sent to tell my lord, ^bthat I may find favor in your sight.”’”

⁶Then the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother, to Esau, and furthermore ^ahe is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.” ⁷Then Jacob was ^agreatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and the herds and the camels, into two camps. ⁸And he said, “If Esau comes to the one camp and strikes it, then the camp which remains will escape.”

⁹And Jacob said, “O ^aGod of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Yahweh, who said to me, ‘^bReturn to your land and to your kin, and I will ¹prosper you,’ ¹⁰¹I am unworthy ^aof all the lovingkindness and of all the truth which You have shown to Your slave; for with my staff only I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. ¹¹“^aDeliver me, I pray, ^bfrom the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and strike me down with the ^cmothers and the children. ¹²“For You said, ‘^aI will surely ¹prosper you and ^bmake your seed as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered.’”

¹³So he spent the night there. Then he took from what ¹he had with him a ^apresent for his brother Esau: ¹⁴two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, ¹⁵thirty milking camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. ¹⁶And he gave them into the hand of his servants, every flock by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on before me and put a space between flocks.” ¹⁷And he commanded the first one in front, saying, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks you, saying, ‘To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and to whom do these animals in front of you belong?’ ¹⁸then you shall say, ‘These belong to your servant Jacob; it is a present sent to my lord, to Esau. And behold, he also is behind us.’” ¹⁹Then he commanded also the second and the third and all those who followed the flocks, saying, “After this manner you shall speak to Esau when you find him; ²⁰and you shall say, ‘Behold, your servant Jacob also is behind us.’” For he said, “I will appease his face with the present that goes before me. Then afterward I will see his face; perhaps he will lift up my face.” ²¹So the present passed on before him, while he himself spent that night in the camp.

²²And he arose that same night and took his two wives and his two servant-women and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the ^aJabbok. ²³And he took them and sent them across the stream. And he sent across whatever he had.

Jacob Wrestles with God

²⁴Then Jacob was left alone, and a man ^awrestled with him until the ¹breaking of dawn. ²⁵And he saw that he had not prevailed against him, so he touched the socket of his thigh; and so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. ²⁶Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is ¹breaking.” But he said, “^aI will not let you go unless you bless me.” ²⁷So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” ²⁸^aThen he said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but ¹Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.” ²⁹Then ^aJacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And he blessed him there. ³⁰So Jacob named the place ¹Peniel, for he said, “^aI have seen God face to face, yet my ²life has been delivered.” ³¹And the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over ^aPenuel, and he was limping on his thigh. ³²Therefore, to this day the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip which is on the socket of the thigh because he touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the hip.

Jacob Meets Esau

33Then Jacob lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, ^aEsau was coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children ¹among Leah and Rachel and the two servant-women. ²And he put the servant-women and their children first, and Leah and her children after them, and Rachel and Joseph after them. ³But he himself passed on ahead of them and ^abowed down to the ground seven times, until he ^bcame near to his brother.

⁴Then Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and ^afell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. ⁵And he lifted up his eyes and saw the women and the children and said, “¹Who are these with you?” And he said, “^aThe children whom God has graciously given your servant.” ⁶Then the servant-women came near ¹with their children, and they bowed down. ⁷Leah likewise came near with her children, and they bowed down; and afterward Joseph came near with Rachel, and they bowed down. ⁸And he said, “What do you mean by ^aall ¹these camps which I have met?” And he said, “^bTo find favor in the sight of my lord.” ⁹But Esau said, “^aI have plenty, my brother; let what you have be your own.” ¹⁰And Jacob said, “No, please, if now I have found favor in your sight, then take my present from my hand, ¹for I see your face as one sees the face of God, and you have received me favorably. ¹¹“Please take my ^ablessing which has been brought to you, ^bbecause God has dealt graciously with me and because I have ¹everything.” Thus he urged him, and he took it.

¹²Then ¹Esau said, “Let us take our journey and go, and I will go before you.” ¹³But he said to him, “My lord knows that the children are weak and that the flocks and herds which are nursing are ¹a care to me. And if they are driven hard one day, all the flocks will die. ¹⁴“Please let my lord pass on before his servant, and I will lead on slowly, according to the pace of the cattle that are before me and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my lord at ^aSeir.”

¹⁵Then Esau said, “Please let me leave with you some of the people who are with me.” But he said, “Why do this? ^aLet me find favor in the sight of my lord.” ¹⁶So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir. ¹⁷But Jacob journeyed to ¹^,^aSuccoth and built for himself a house and made booths for his livestock; therefore the place is named Succoth.

Jacob Camps in Shechem

¹⁸Now Jacob came safely to the city of ^aShechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from ^bPaddan-aram, and he camped before the city. ¹⁹^aThen he bought a portion of a field where he had pitched his tent from the hand of the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for one hundred ¹qesitah. ²⁰Then he set up there an altar and called it ¹El-Elohe-Israel.

Simeon and Levi Deceive Shechem

34Now ^aDinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. ²Then Shechem the son of Hamor ^athe Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her and took her and lay with her and violated her. ³¹And he was deeply attracted to Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the young woman and spoke to the heart of the young woman. ⁴So Shechem ^aspoke to his father Hamor, saying, “Get me this girl as a wife.” ⁵Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter; but his sons were with his livestock in the field, so Jacob kept silent until they came in. ⁶Then Hamor the father of Shechem went out to Jacob to speak with him. ⁷Now 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 ¹^,^adisgraceful thing in Israel ²by lying with Jacob’s daughter, for such a thing ought not to be done.

⁸But Hamor spoke with them, saying, “The soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter; please give her to him as a wife. ⁹“And intermarry with us; give your daughters to us and take our daughters for yourselves. ¹⁰“Thus you shall ¹live with us, and ^athe land shall be open before you; ²live and ^btrade in it and ^ctake possession of property in it.” ¹¹And Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, “If I find favor in your sight, then I will give whatever you say to me. ¹²“Ask me ever so much bridal payment and gift, and I will give according as you say to me; but give me the girl as a wife.”

¹³But Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor with deceit, and thus they spoke, because he had defiled Dinah their sister. ¹⁴And they said to them, “We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to ^aone who is uncircumcised, for that would be a reproach to us. ¹⁵“Only on this condition will we consent to you: if you will become like us, in that every male among you be circumcised, ¹⁶then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters for ourselves, and we will ¹live with you and become one people. ¹⁷“But if you will not listen to us to be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and go.”

¹⁸Now their words seemed good in the sight of Hamor and Shechem, Hamor’s son. ¹⁹So the young man did not delay to do the thing because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter. Now he was more honored than all the household of his father. ²⁰So Hamor and his son Shechem came to the ^agate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, saying, ²¹“These men are peaceful with us; therefore let them ¹live in the land and trade in it, for behold, the land is ²large enough for them. Let us take their daughters for us as wives and give our daughters to them. ²²“Only on this condition will the men consent to us to ¹live with us, to become one people: that every male among us be circumcised as they are circumcised. ²³“Will not their livestock and what they acquire and all their cattle be ours? Only let us consent to them, and they will ¹live with us.” ²⁴^aAnd all who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor and to his son Shechem, and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city.

²⁵Now it happened on the third day, when they were in pain, that two of Jacob’s sons, ^aSimeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and came upon the unsuspecting city and killed every male. ²⁶And they killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the edge of the sword and took Dinah from Shechem’s house and went away. ²⁷Jacob’s sons came upon the slain and plundered the city because they had defiled their sister. ²⁸They took their flocks and their herds and their donkeys and that which was in the city and that which was in the field; ²⁹and they captured and plundered all their wealth and all their little ones and their wives, even all that was in the houses. ³⁰Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have ^abrought trouble on me by ^bmaking me odious among the inhabitants of the land, among ^cthe Canaanites and the Perizzites; and ¹^,^dmy men being few in number, they will gather together against me and strike me, and I will be destroyed, I and my household.” ³¹But they said, “Should he ¹treat our sister as a harlot?”

Jacob Goes Up to Bethel

35Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to ^aBethel and ¹live there, and make an altar there to ^bGod, who appeared to you ^cwhen you fled ²from your brother Esau.” ²So Jacob said to his ^ahousehold and to all who were with him, “Put away ^bthe foreign gods which are among you and ^ccleanse yourselves and change your garments; ³and let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make ^aan altar there to God, ^bwho answered me in the day of my distress and ^chas been with me ¹wherever I have gone.” ⁴So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods which ¹they had and the rings which were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the ²oak which was near Shechem.

⁵Then they journeyed on, and there was ¹^,^aa terror from God upon the cities which were around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. ⁶So Jacob came to ^aLuz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. ⁷^aAnd he built an altar there and called the place ¹El-bethel, because there God had revealed Himself to him when he fled ²from his brother. ⁸Then ^aDeborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried below Bethel under the oak; it was named ¹Allon-bacuth.

Jacob Is Renamed Israel

⁹Then God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Paddan-aram, and He ^ablessed him. ¹⁰^aAnd God said to him, “Your name is Jacob;Your name shall no longer be called Jacob,But Israel shall be your name.” Thus He called his name Israel.¹¹God also said to him, “I am ¹^,^aGod Almighty;^bBe fruitful and multiply;A nation and an ^cassembly of nations shall ²come from you,And ^dkings shall ³come forth from your loins.

¹²“^aAnd the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac,I will give it to you,And I will give the land to your seed after you.”

¹³Then ^aGod went up from him in the place where He had spoken with him. ¹⁴And Jacob set up ^aa pillar in the place where He had spoken with him, a pillar of stone, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it. ¹⁵So Jacob named the place where God had spoken with him, ¹^,^aBethel.

¹⁶Then they journeyed from Bethel; and there was still some distance to go to ^aEphrath, and Rachel gave birth, and she ¹suffered severely in her labor. ¹⁷Now it happened that when she was in severe labor the midwife said to her, “Do not fear, for now ^ayou have another son.” ¹⁸Now it happened as her soul was departing (for she died), that she named him ¹Ben-oni; but his father called him ²Benjamin. ¹⁹So ^aRachel died and was buried on the way to ^bEphrath (that is, Bethlehem). ²⁰And Jacob set up a pillar over her grave; that is the ^apillar of Rachel’s grave to this day. ²¹Then Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond the ¹^,^atower of ²Eder.

The Sons of Jacob

²²Now it happened while Israel was dwelling in that land, that ^aReuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine, and Israel heard of it. And there were twelve sons of Jacob—

²³^athe sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, then Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Zebulun; ²⁴^athe sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin; ²⁵and ^athe sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s servant-woman: Dan and Naphtali; ²⁶and ^athe sons of Zilpah, Leah’s servant-woman: Gad and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram.

²⁷And Jacob came to his father Isaac at ^aMamre of ^bKiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned.

²⁸Now the days of Isaac were ^a180 years. ²⁹And Isaac breathed his last and died and was ^agathered to his people, an ^bold man and full of days; and ^chis sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

The Generations of Esau

36Now these are the generations of ^aEsau (that is, Edom).

²Esau ^atook his wives from the daughters of Canaan: Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and ^bOholibamah the daughter of Anah and the ^cgranddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite; ³also Basemath, Ishmael’s daughter, the sister of Nebaioth. ⁴And Adah bore ^aEliphaz to Esau, and Basemath bore Reuel, ⁵and Oholibamah bore Jeush and Jalam and Korah. These are the sons of Esau who were born to him in the land of Canaan.

⁶^aThen Esau took his wives and his sons and his daughters and all ¹his household, and his livestock and all his cattle and all his acquired goods, which he had accumulated in the land of Canaan, and he went to a land away from his brother Jacob. ⁷^aFor their possessions had become too great for them to ¹live together, and the ^bland where they ^csojourned could not sustain them because of their livestock. ⁸So Esau lived in the hill country of ^aSeir; Esau is ^bEdom.

⁹These then are the generations of Esau the father of ¹the Edomites in the hill country of Seir. ¹⁰These are the names of Esau’s sons: Eliphaz the son of Esau’s wife Adah, Reuel the son of Esau’s wife Basemath. ¹¹The sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, ¹Zepho and Gatam and Kenaz. ¹²Timna was a concubine of Esau’s son Eliphaz, and she bore ^aAmalek to Eliphaz. These are the sons of Esau’s wife Adah. ¹³These are the sons of Reuel: Nahath and Zerah, Shammah and Mizzah. These were the sons of Esau’s wife Basemath. ¹⁴These were the sons of Esau’s wife Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah and the ¹granddaughter of Zibeon: ²she bore to Esau, Jeush and Jalam and Korah.

¹⁵These are the chiefs of the sons of Esau. The sons of Eliphaz, the firstborn of Esau, are chief Teman, chief Omar, chief Zepho, chief Kenaz, ¹⁶chief Korah, chief Gatam, chief Amalek. These are the chiefs ¹descended from Eliphaz in the land of Edom; these are the sons of Adah. ¹⁷These are the sons of Reuel, Esau’s son: chief Nahath, chief Zerah, chief Shammah, chief Mizzah. These are the chiefs ¹descended from Reuel in the land of Edom; these are the sons of Esau’s wife Basemath. ¹⁸These are the sons of Esau’s wife Oholibamah: chief Jeush, chief Jalam, chief Korah. These are the chiefs ¹descended from Esau’s wife Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah. ¹⁹These are the sons of Esau (that is, Edom), and these are their chiefs.

²⁰These are the sons of Seir ^athe Horite, the inhabitants of the land: Lotan and Shobal and Zibeon and Anah, ²¹and Dishon and Ezer and Dishan. These are the chiefs ¹descended from the Horites, the sons of Seir in the land of Edom. ²²The sons of Lotan were Hori and ¹Hemam; and Lotan’s sister was Timna. ²³These are the sons of Shobal: ¹Alvan and Manahath and Ebal, ²Shepho and Onam. ²⁴These are the sons of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah—he is the Anah who found the hot springs in the wilderness when he was pasturing the donkeys of his father Zibeon. ²⁵These are the children of Anah: Dishon and Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah. ²⁶These are the sons of ¹^,^aDishon: ²Hemdan and Eshban and Ithran and Cheran. ²⁷These are the sons of Ezer: Bilhan and Zaavan and ¹Akan. ²⁸These are the sons of Dishan: Uz and Aran. ²⁹These are the chiefs of the Horites: chief Lotan, chief Shobal, chief Zibeon, chief Anah, ³⁰chief Dishon, chief Ezer, chief Dishan. These are the chiefs ¹descended from the Horites, according to their various chiefs in the land of Seir.

³¹Now these are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any ^aking of the sons of Israel reigned. ³²^aAnd Bela the son of Beor became king in Edom, and the name of his city was Dinhabah. ³³Then Bela died, and Jobab the son of Zerah of Bozrah became king in his place. ³⁴Then Jobab died, and Husham of the land of the Temanites became king in his place. ³⁵Then Husham died, and Hadad the son of Bedad, who struck down Midian in the field of Moab, became king in his place; and the name of his city was Avith. ³⁶Then Hadad died, and Samlah of Masrekah became king in his place. ³⁷Then Samlah died, and Shaul of Rehoboth on the ¹River became king in his place. ³⁸Then Shaul died, and Baal-hanan the son of Achbor became king in his place. ³⁹Then Baal-hanan the son of Achbor died, and ¹Hadar became king in his place; and the name of his city was ²Pau; and his wife’s name was Mehetabel, the daughter of Matred, daughter of Mezahab.

⁴⁰Now these are the names of the chiefs ¹descended from Esau, according to their families and their places, by their names: chief Timna, chief ²Alvah, chief Jetheth, ⁴¹chief Oholibamah, chief Elah, chief Pinon, ⁴²chief Kenaz, chief Teman, chief Mibzar, ⁴³chief Magdiel, chief Iram. These are the chiefs of Edom (that is, Esau, the father of ¹the Edomites), according to their places of habitation in the land of their possession.

The Generations of Jacob

37Now Jacob lived in ^athe land ¹where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan. ²These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, when ^aseventeen years of age, was pasturing the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with ^bthe sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought back an ^cevil report about them to their father. ³Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was ^athe son of his old age; and he made him a ¹^,^bvaricolored tunic. ⁴And his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and so they ^ahated him and could not speak to him in peace.

Joseph’s Dreams

⁵Then Joseph ¹^,^ahad a dream, and he told it to his brothers; so they hated him even more. ⁶And he said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I have ¹had: ⁷Indeed, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf rose up and also stood upright; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and ^abowed down to my sheaf.” ⁸Then his brothers said to him, “^aAre you really 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.

⁹Then he ¹had still another dream and recounted it to his brothers and said, “Behold, I have ²had still another dream; and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” ¹⁰And he recounted it to his father and to his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have ¹had? Shall I and your mother and ^ayour brothers really come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground?” ¹¹^aAnd his brothers were jealous of him, but his father ^bkept the saying in mind.

¹²Then his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock in Shechem. ¹³And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock in ^aShechem? Come, and I will send you to them.” And he said to him, “¹I will go.” ¹⁴Then he said to him, “Go now and see about the welfare of your brothers and the welfare of the flock, and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of ^aHebron, and he came to Shechem.

¹⁵And a man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the field; and the man asked him, “¹What are you seeking?” ¹⁶And he said, “I am seeking my brothers; please tell me where they are pasturing the flock.” ¹⁷Then the man said, “They have journeyed from here; for I heard them saying, ‘Let us go to ^aDothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

Joseph Sold by His Brothers

¹⁸And they saw him from a distance, and before he came close to them, they ^aplotted against him to put him to death. ¹⁹Then they said to one another, “¹Here comes this dreamer! ²⁰“So now, come and let us kill him and cast him into one of the pits; and ^awe will say, ‘A wild beast devoured him.’ Then let us see what will become of his dreams!” ²¹But ^aReuben heard this and delivered him out of their hands and said, “Let us not strike down his life.” ²²Reuben further said to them, “Shed no blood. Cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but do not put forth your hands against him”—that he might deliver him out of their hands to return him to his father. ²³Now it happened, when Joseph ¹reached his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his ²tunic, the varicolored tunic that was on him; ²⁴and they took him and cast him into the pit. Now the pit was empty, without any water in it.

²⁵And they sat down to eat ¹a meal. Then they lifted up their eyes and saw, and behold, a caravan of ^aIshmaelites was coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing ²^,^baromatic gum and ³^,^cbalm and ⁴myrrh, going to bring them down to Egypt. ²⁶And Judah said to his brothers, “What gain is it that we kill our brother and ^acover up his blood? ²⁷“^aCome and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers listened. ²⁸Then some ^aMidianite traders passed by, so they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit and ^bsold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for ¹twenty shekels of silver. Thus ^cthey brought Joseph into Egypt.

²⁹Then Reuben returned to the pit, and behold, Joseph was not in the pit; so he ^atore his garments. ³⁰Then he returned to his brothers and said, “^aThe boy is not there; as for me, where am I to go?” ³¹So ^athey took Joseph’s tunic and slaughtered a male goat and dipped the tunic in the blood; ³²and they sent the varicolored tunic and brought it to their father and said, “We found this; please recognize it—whether it is your son’s tunic or not.” ³³And he recognized it and said, “It is my son’s tunic. ^aA wild beast has devoured him; ^bJoseph has surely been torn to pieces!” ³⁴So Jacob ^atore his clothes and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days. ³⁵Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, “Surely I will ^ago down to Sheol in mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him. ³⁶Meanwhile, the ¹Midianites ^asold him in Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaoh’s officer, the captain of the bodyguard.

Judah and Tamar

38Now it happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain ^aAdullamite, whose name was Hirah. ²And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was ^aShua; and he took her and went in to her. ³So she conceived and bore a son, and he named him ^aEr. ⁴Then she conceived again and bore a son, and she named him ^aOnan. ⁵And she bore still another son, and she named him ^aShelah; and it was at Chezib ¹that she bore him.

⁶Then Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. ⁷But ^aEr, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight of Yahweh, so Yahweh put him to death. ⁸Then Judah said to Onan, “^aGo in to your brother’s wife, and perform your duty as a brother-in-law to her, and raise up a seed for your brother.” ⁹And Onan knew that the ^aseed would not be his; and it happened that when he went in to his brother’s wife, he wasted it on the ground in order not to give seed to his brother. ¹⁰But what he did was displeasing in the sight of Yahweh; so He ^aput him to death also. ¹¹Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “^aLive as a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up”; for he ¹thought, “I am afraid lest he also die like his brothers.” So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.

¹²And ¹after a considerable time, Shua’s daughter, the wife of Judah, died. Then Judah was comforted, and he went up to his sheepshearers at ^aTimnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. ¹³Then it was told to Tamar, “¹Behold, your father-in-law is going up to ^aTimnah to shear his sheep.” ¹⁴So she removed her widow’s garments from herself and ^acovered herself with a ¹veil and wrapped herself. And she sat at the entrance of ²Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah had grown up, and ^bshe had not been given to him as a wife. ¹⁵Then Judah saw her, and he thought she was a harlot, for she had covered her face. ¹⁶So he turned aside to her by the road and said, “Here now, let me come in to you”; for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. And she said, “What will you give me, that you may come in to me?” ¹⁷He said, therefore, “I will send you a ¹young goat from the flock.” She said, moreover, “Will you give a pledge until you send it?” ¹⁸Then he said, “What pledge shall I give you?” And she said, “^aYour signet and your cord and your staff that is in your hand.” So he gave them to her and went in to her, and she conceived by him. ¹⁹Then she arose and went. And she removed her ¹veil from herself and put on her widow’s garments.

²⁰Then Judah sent the ¹young goat by his friend the Adullamite to take the pledge from the woman’s hand, but he did not find her. ²¹So he asked the men of her place, saying, “Where is the cult prostitute who was by the road at Enaim?” But they said, “There has been no cult prostitute here.” ²²So he returned to Judah and said, “I did not find her; and furthermore, the men of the place said, ‘There has been no cult prostitute here.’” ²³Then Judah said, “Let her ¹keep them, lest we become a laughingstock. Behold, I sent this young goat, but you did not find her.”

²⁴Now it happened about three months later that it was told to Judah saying, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has played the harlot, and behold, she is also with child by harlotry.” Then Judah said, “Bring her out and ^alet her be burned!” ²⁵It was while she was being brought out that she sent to her father-in-law, saying, “I am with child by the man to whom these things belong.” And she said, “^aPlease recognize this and see, whose signet ring and cords and staff are these?” ²⁶And Judah recognized them and said, “^aShe is more righteous than I, inasmuch as ^bI did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not ¹know her again.

²⁷Now it happened at the time she was giving birth, that behold, there were ^atwins in her womb. ²⁸And it happened, while she was giving birth, one put out a hand, and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.” ²⁹And then it happened, as he drew back his hand, that behold, his brother came out. So she said, “What a breach you have made for yourself!” So he was named ¹^,^aPerez. ³⁰Afterward his brother came out who had the scarlet thread on his hand; and he was named ¹^,^aZerah.

Joseph in Potiphar’s House

39Now Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian official of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought him ¹from the ^aIshmaelites, who had brought him down there. ²^aAnd Yahweh was with Joseph, so he became a ¹successful man. And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian. ³Now his master ^asaw that Yahweh was with him and how Yahweh ^bcaused all that he did to succeed in his hand. ⁴So Joseph ^afound favor in his sight and ¹attended on him; and he appointed him overseer over his house, and ^ball that he owned he gave in his hand. ⁵Now it happened that from the time he appointed him overseer in his house and over all that he owned, Yahweh ^ablessed the Egyptian’s house on account of Joseph; thus ^bthe blessing of Yahweh was upon all that he owned, in the house and in the field. ⁶So he left everything he owned in Joseph’s hand; and with him there he did not ¹concern himself with anything except the ²food which he ³ate. Now Joseph was ^abeautiful in form and beautiful in appearance.

⁷And it happened after these events ^athat his master’s wife ¹set her eyes on Joseph and said, “^bLie with me.” ⁸But ^ahe refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, with me here, my master ¹does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has given all that he owns into my hand. ⁹“¹^,^aThere is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and ^bsin against God?” ¹⁰So it happened that as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he did not listen to her to lie beside her or be with her.

¹¹Now it happened ¹one day that he went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the household was there inside. ¹²Then she seized him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me!” And he left his garment in her hand and fled and went outside. ¹³Now it happened, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, ¹⁴that she called to the men of her household and spoke to them, saying, “See, he has brought in a ¹Hebrew to us to laugh at us; he came in to me to lie with me, and I ²screamed. ¹⁵“Now it happened that when he heard that I raised my voice and ¹screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled and went outside.” ¹⁶And she placed his garment beside her until his master came home. ¹⁷Then she ^aspoke to him ¹with these words, saying, “The Hebrew slave, whom you brought to us, came in to me to laugh at me; ¹⁸and as I raised my voice and ¹screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled outside.”

Joseph Is Put into Jail

¹⁹Now it happened that when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spoke to him, saying, “¹This is what your slave did to me,” ^ahis anger burned. ²⁰So Joseph’s master took him and ^aput him into the jail, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined; and he was there in the jail. ²¹But ^aYahweh was with Joseph and ¹extended lovingkindness to him and ^bgave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer. ²²So the chief jailer ^agave into the hand of Joseph all the prisoners who were in the jail; so that whatever was done there, he was ¹the one who did it. ²³^aThe chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph’s hand because ^bYahweh was with him; and whatever he did, ^cYahweh made to succeed.

Joseph Interprets the Officials’ Dreams

40Now it happened that after these things, ^athe cupbearer and the baker for the king of Egypt offended their lord, the king of Egypt. ²And Pharaoh was ^afurious with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker. ³So he put them in confinement in the house of the ^acaptain of the bodyguard, in the jail, the same place where Joseph was imprisoned. ⁴And the captain of the bodyguard appointed Joseph as overseer over them, and he ¹attended to them; and they were in confinement for ²some time. ⁵Then the cupbearer and the baker for the king of Egypt, who were confined in jail, both had a dream the same night, each man with his own dream and each dream with its own interpretation. ⁶Now Joseph came to them in the morning and saw them, and behold, they were dejected. ⁷So he asked Pharaoh’s officials who were with him in confinement in his master’s house, saying, “^aWhy are your faces so sad today?” ⁸Then they said to him, “^aWe have ¹had a dream, and there is no one to interpret it.” Then Joseph said to them, “^bDo not interpretations belong to God? Recount it to me, please.”

⁹So the chief cupbearer recounted his dream to Joseph and said to him, “In my dream, ¹behold, there was a vine in front of me; ¹⁰and on the vine were three branches. And as it was budding, its blossoms came out, and its clusters produced ripe grapes. ¹¹“Now Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand; so I took the grapes and squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and I put the cup into Pharaoh’s ¹hand.” ¹²Then Joseph said to him, “This is the ^ainterpretation of it: the three branches are three days; ¹³within three more days Pharaoh will ¹lift up your head and restore you to your ²office; and you will put Pharaoh’s cup into his hand according to your former custom when you were his cupbearer. ¹⁴“Only remember me when it goes well with you, and please ^ashow me lovingkindness by remembering me to Pharaoh and getting me out of this house. ¹⁵“For ^aI was in fact stolen from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing that they should have put me into the pit.”

¹⁶And the chief baker saw that he had interpreted favorably, so he said to Joseph, “I also saw in my dream, and behold, there were three baskets of white bread on my head; ¹⁷and in the top basket there were some of all ¹sorts of baked food for Pharaoh, and the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.” ¹⁸Then Joseph answered and said, “This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days; ¹⁹within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head off of you and will hang you on a tree, and the birds will eat your flesh off of you.”

²⁰Thus it happened on the third day, which was ^aPharaoh’s birthday, that he made a feast for all his servants; ^band he lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants. ²¹And he restored the chief cupbearer to his ¹office, and ^ahe put the cup into Pharaoh’s ²hand; ²²but ^ahe hanged the chief baker, just as Joseph had interpreted to them. ²³Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but ^aforgot him.

Joseph Interprets Pharaoh’s Dream

41Now it happened at the end of two full years that Pharaoh had a dream, and behold, he was standing by the Nile. ²And behold, from the Nile there came up seven cows, sleek and ¹fat; and they grazed in the ^areeds. ³Then behold, seven other cows came up after them from the Nile, ¹ugly and ²thin, and they stood by the other cows on the bank of the Nile. ⁴And the ugly and ¹thin cows ate up the seven sleek and fat cows. Then Pharaoh awoke. ⁵He again fell asleep and dreamed a second time; and behold, seven ears of grain came up on a single stalk, plump and good. ⁶And behold, seven ears, thin and scorched by the east wind, sprouted up after them. ⁷And the thin ears swallowed up the seven plump and full ears. Then Pharaoh awoke, and behold, it was a dream. ⁸Now it happened that in the morning ^ahis spirit was troubled, so he sent and called for all the ¹^,^bmagicians of Egypt and all its ^cwise men. And Pharaoh recounted to them his dream, but ^dthere was no one who could interpret them to Pharaoh.

⁹Then the chief cupbearer spoke to Pharaoh, saying, “I would bring to remembrance today ^amy own ¹offenses. ¹⁰“Pharaoh was ^afurious with his servants, and ^bhe put me in confinement in the house of the captain of the bodyguard, both me and the chief baker. ¹¹“^aAnd we had a dream ¹on the same night, ²he and I; each of us dreamed according to the interpretation of his own dream. ¹²“Now there was with us a Hebrew youth, a ^aslave of the captain of the bodyguard, and we recounted them to him, and ^bhe interpreted our dreams for us. To each one he interpreted according to his own dream. ¹³“And just ^aas he interpreted for us, so it happened; he restored me in my ¹office, but he hanged him.”

¹⁴Then Pharaoh sent and ^acalled for Joseph, and they ^brushed him out of the pit; and he shaved himself and changed his clothes, and he came to Pharaoh. ¹⁵And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have had a dream, ^abut no one can interpret it; yet ^bI have heard ¹it said about you, that ²you hear a dream and that you can interpret it.” ¹⁶Joseph then answered Pharaoh, saying, “¹^,^aIt is not in me; ^bGod will ²answer concerning the welfare of Pharaoh.” ¹⁷So Pharaoh spoke to Joseph, “In my dream, behold, I was standing on the bank of the Nile; ¹⁸and behold, seven cows, ¹fat and sleek came up out of the Nile, and they grazed in the reeds. ¹⁹“And behold, seven other cows came up after them, poor and very ugly and lean, such as I had never seen in all the land of Egypt, in regard to ¹ugliness; ²⁰and the lean and ugly cows ate up the first seven fat cows. ²¹“But they ¹devoured them, and yet it could not be known that they had ²devoured them. ³For they were just as ugly as ⁴before. Then I awoke. ²²“Then I saw also in my dream, and behold, seven ears, full and good, came up on a single stalk; ²³and behold, seven ears, withered, thin, and scorched by the east wind, sprouted up after them; ²⁴and the thin ears swallowed the seven good ears. So ^aI told it to the ¹magicians, but there was no one who could declare it to me.”

²⁵Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “Pharaoh’s ¹dreams are one and the same; ^aGod has declared to Pharaoh what He is about to do. ²⁶“The seven good cows are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years; the ¹dreams are one and the same. ²⁷“And the seven lean and ugly cows that came up after them are seven years, and the seven lean ears scorched by the east wind ^awill be seven years of famine. ²⁸“¹It is as I have spoken to Pharaoh: ^aGod has shown to Pharaoh what He is about to do. ²⁹“Behold, ^aseven years of great abundance are coming in all the land of Egypt; ³⁰and after them ^aseven years of famine will arise, and all the abundance will be forgotten in the land of Egypt, and the famine will ¹ravage the land, ³¹so that the abundance will be unknown in the land because of that subsequent famine; for it will be very heavy. ³²“Now as for the repeating of the dream to Pharaoh twice, it means that ^athe matter is confirmed by God, and God will quickly bring it about. ³³“So now let Pharaoh look for a man ^aunderstanding and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. ³⁴“Let Pharaoh take action and appoint overseers over the land, and let him exact a fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt in the seven years of abundance. ³⁵“Then let them ^agather all the food of these good years that are coming, and let them store up the grain for food in the cities under Pharaoh’s authority, and let them keep watch over it. ³⁶“And let the food be appointed for the land for the seven years of famine which will happen in the land of Egypt, so that the land will not be cut off during the famine.”

Joseph Is Set over Egypt

³⁷And the ¹proposal seemed good ²to Pharaoh and ³to all his servants. ³⁸Then Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, ^ain whom is a divine spirit?” ³⁹So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has made you know all of this, there is no one so ^aunderstanding and wise as you are. ⁴⁰“^aYou shall be over my house, and according to your ¹command all my people shall ²do homage; only in the throne I will be greater than you.” ⁴¹And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you ^aover all the land of Egypt.” ⁴²Then Pharaoh ^aremoved his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand and clothed him in garments of fine linen and ^bput the gold necklace around his neck. ⁴³And he had him ride in ¹his second chariot; and they called out before him, “²Bow the knee!” And he set him over all the land of Egypt. ⁴⁴Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Though I am Pharaoh, yet ^awithout ¹your permission no one shall raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.” ⁴⁵Then Pharaoh named Joseph ¹Zaphenath-paneah; and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of ²^,^aOn, as a wife. And Joseph went forth over the land of Egypt.

⁴⁶Now Joseph was ^athirty years old when he ¹stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and passed through all the land of Egypt. ⁴⁷And during the seven years of plenty the land brought forth ¹abundantly. ⁴⁸So he gathered all the food of these seven years which happened in the land of Egypt and placed the food in the cities; he placed in every city the food from its own surrounding fields. ⁴⁹Thus Joseph stored up grain ¹in great abundance like the sand of the sea, until he stopped ²measuring it, for it was ³beyond measure.

The Sons of Joseph

⁵⁰Now before the year of famine came, ^atwo sons were born to Joseph, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of ¹On, bore to him. ⁵¹And Joseph named the firstborn ¹Manasseh, “For,” he said, “God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household.” ⁵²And he named the second ¹Ephraim, “For,” he said, “^aGod has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

⁵³Then the seven years of plenty which had been in the land of Egypt came to an end, ⁵⁴and ^athe seven years of famine began to come, just as Joseph had said. So there was famine in all the lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. ⁵⁵Then all the land of Egypt was famished, and the people cried out to Pharaoh for bread; and Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph; ^awhatever he says to you, you shall do.” ⁵⁶Now the famine was over all the face of the land. And Joseph opened all ¹the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians; and the famine was severe in the land of Egypt. ⁵⁷Now all the earth also came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph because ^athe famine was severe in all the earth.

Joseph’s Brothers Sent to Egypt

42Now ^aJacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, “Why are you staring at one another?” ²Then he said, “Behold, ^aI have heard that there is grain in Egypt; go down there and buy some for us from there, ^bso that we may live and not die.” ³So ten brothers of Joseph went down to buy grain from Egypt. ⁴But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother ^aBenjamin with his brothers, for he said, “^bLest any harm befall him.” ⁵So the sons of Israel came to buy grain among those who were coming, ^afor the famine was in the land of Canaan also.

⁶Now ^aJoseph was the one in power over the land; he was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and ^bbowed down to him with their ¹faces to the ground. ⁷And Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he disguised himself to them and ^aspoke to them harshly. And he said to them, “Where have you come from?” And they said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.”

⁸But Joseph recognized his brothers, although ^athey did not recognize him. ⁹And Joseph ^aremembered the dreams which he ¹had about them and said to them, “You are spies; you have come to look at the ²nakedness of the land.” ¹⁰Then they said to him, “No, ^amy lord, but your servants have come to buy food. ¹¹“We are all sons of one man; we are ^ahonest men; your servants are not spies.” ¹²And he said to them, “No, but you have come to look at the ¹nakedness of our land!” ¹³So they said, “Your servants are twelve brothers in all, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and behold, the youngest is with ^aour father today, and ^bone is no more.” ¹⁴And Joseph said to them, “It is as I said ¹to you, you are spies; ¹⁵by this you will be tested: ^aby the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here! ¹⁶“Send one of you that he may get your brother, while you remain confined, that your words may be tested, whether there is ^atruth in you. But if not, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies.” ¹⁷Then he put them all together in ^aprison for three days.

¹⁸And Joseph said to them on the third day, “Do this and live, for ^aI fear God: ¹⁹if you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined in ¹your prison; but as for the rest of you, go, bring grain for the famine of your households, ²⁰and ^abring your youngest brother to me, so your words may be proven true, and you will not die.” And they did so. ²¹Then they said to one another, “^aSurely we are guilty concerning our brother because we saw the distress of his soul when he begged us, yet we would not listen; therefore this distress has come upon us.” ²²And Reuben answered them, saying, “^aDid I not tell you, saying, ‘Do not sin against the boy’; yet you would not listen? ^bSo also his blood, behold, it is required of us.” ²³Now they did not know that Joseph was listening, for there was an interpreter between them. ²⁴And he turned away from them and ^awept. Then he returned to them and spoke to them. And he ^btook Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes. ²⁵^aThen Joseph gave a command to fill their bags with grain and to restore every man’s money in his sack and to give them provisions for the journey. And thus it was done for them.

²⁶So they loaded their donkeys with their grain and went from there. ²⁷Then one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place. And he saw his ^amoney; and behold, it was in the mouth of his sack. ²⁸So he said to his brothers, “My money has been returned, and behold, it is even in my sack.” And their hearts ¹sank, and they turned ²trembling to one another, saying, “^aWhat is this that God has done to us?”

Jacob Is Bereaved

²⁹Then they came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan and told him all that had happened to them, saying, ³⁰“The man, the lord of the land, ^aspoke harshly with us and took us for spies of the country. ³¹“So we said to him, ‘We are ^ahonest men; we are not spies. ³²‘We are twelve brothers, sons of our father; one is no more, and the youngest is with our father today in the land of Canaan.’ ³³“Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘^aBy this I will know that you are honest men: leave one of your brothers with me and take grain for the famine of your households, and go. ³⁴‘But bring your youngest brother to me that I may know that you are not spies, but ¹honest men. I will give your brother to you, and you may ^atrade in the land.’”

³⁵Now it happened that they were emptying their sacks, and behold, ^aevery man’s bundle of money was in his sack; and they and their father saw their bundles of money, and they feared. ³⁶And their father Jacob said to them, “You have ^abereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and you would take Benjamin; all these things are against me.” ³⁷Then Reuben spoke to his father, saying, “You may put my two sons to death if I do not bring him back to you; put him in my hand, and I will return him to you.” ³⁸But ¹Jacob said, “My son shall not go down with you; for his ^abrother is dead, and he alone remains. ^bIf harm should befall him on the journey on which you are going, then you will ^cbring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.”

The Brothers Return to Egypt

43^aNow the famine was heavy in the land. ²And it happened when they had finished eating the grain which they had brought from Egypt, that their father said to them, “Go back, buy us a little food.” ³Judah spoke to him, however, saying, “^aThe man solemnly warned us, saying, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’ ⁴“If you send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food. ⁵“But if you do not send him, we will not go down; for the man said to us, ‘You will not see my face unless your brother is with you.’” ⁶Then Israel said, “Why did you treat me so badly ¹by telling the man whether you still had another brother?” ⁷But they said, “The man questioned particularly about us and our kin, saying, ‘^aIs your father still alive? Have you another brother?’ So we told him concerning these things. Could we possibly have known that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?” ⁸Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, ^athat we may live and not die, we as well as you and our little ones. ⁹“^aI myself will be the guarantee for him; from my hand you may require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then ¹I shall bear the sin before you all my days. ¹⁰“For if we had not delayed, surely by now we could have returned twice.”

¹¹Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, then do this: take some of the best products of the land in your ¹bags, and bring them down to the man ^aas a present, a little ²^,^bbalm and a little honey, ³aromatic gum and ⁴myrrh, pistachio nuts and almonds. ¹²“Now take double the money in your hand, and take back in your hand ^athe money that was put back in the mouth of your sacks; perhaps it was a mistake. ¹³“And take your brother also, and arise, return to the man; ¹⁴and may ¹^,^aGod Almighty ^bgrant you compassion before the man, so that he will release to you ^cyour other brother and Benjamin. And as for me, ^dif I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.” ¹⁵So the men took ^athis present, and they took double the money in their hand, and Benjamin; and they arose and went down to Egypt and stood before Joseph.

Joseph Sees Benjamin

¹⁶Then Joseph saw Benjamin with them and said to his ^ahouse steward, “Bring the men into the house, and slay an animal and prepare it; for the men are to eat with me at noon.” ¹⁷So the man did as Joseph said and ¹brought the men to Joseph’s house. ¹⁸And the men were afraid because they were brought to Joseph’s house; and they said, “It is because of the money that was returned in our sacks the first time that we are being brought in, that he may ¹seek occasion against us and fall upon us and take us for slaves with our donkeys.” ¹⁹So they came near to Joseph’s house steward and spoke to him at the entrance of the house, ²⁰and they said, “Oh, my lord, we indeed came down the first time to buy food, ²¹and it happened when we came to the lodging place, that we opened our sacks, and behold, ^aeach man’s money was in the mouth of his sack, our money in ¹full. So ^bwe have brought it back in our hand. ²²“We have also brought down other money in our hand to buy food; we do not know who put our money in our sacks.” ²³And he said, “¹Be well, do not be afraid. ^aYour God and the God of your father has given you treasure in your sacks; your money has come to me.” Then ^bhe brought Simeon out to them. ²⁴Then the man brought the men into Joseph’s house and ^agave them water, and they ^bwashed their feet; and he gave their donkeys fodder. ²⁵So they prepared ^athe present ¹for Joseph’s coming at noon; for they had heard that they were to eat ²a meal there.

²⁶Then Joseph came home, and they brought into the house to him the present which was in their hand and ^abowed to the ground before him. ²⁷And he asked them about their ¹well-being and said, “^aIs your old father ²well, of whom you spoke? Is he still alive?” ²⁸And they said, “Your servant our father is well; he is still alive.” ^aThey bowed down and prostrated themselves. ²⁹Then he lifted his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother’s son. And he said, “Is this ^ayour youngest brother, of whom you spoke to me?” And he said, “^bMay God be gracious to you, my son.” ³⁰And Joseph hurried out for ¹^,^ahe was deeply stirred with compassion over his brother, and he sought a place to weep; and he entered his chamber and ^bwept there. ³¹Then he washed his face and came out; and he ^arestrained himself and said, “Set the ¹meal.” ³²So they set the meal for him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because the Egyptians could not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that is ^aan abomination to the Egyptians. ³³And they ¹were seated before him, ^athe firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth, and the men looked at one another in astonishment. ³⁴And he took portions to them from ¹his own table, ^abut Benjamin’s portion was five times greater than any of theirs. So they feasted and drank freely with him.

The Brothers Fall Before Joseph

44^aThen he commanded his house steward, saying, “Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man’s money in the mouth of his sack. ²“Now put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest, and his money for the grain.” And he did ¹as Joseph had told him. ³¹As the morning light broke, the men were sent away, they with their donkeys. ⁴Now they had just gone out of ^athe city and were not far off when Joseph said to his house steward, “Arise, pursue the men; you shall overtake them and say to them, ‘Why have you repaid evil for good? ⁵‘Is not this the one from which my lord drinks and which he indeed uses to interpret ^aomens? You have done evil in doing this.’”

⁶So he overtook them and spoke these words to them. ⁷And they said to him, “Why does my lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing. ⁸“Behold, ^athe money which we found in the mouth of our sacks we have brought back to you from the land of Canaan. How then could we steal silver or gold from your lord’s house? ⁹“^aWith whomever of your servants it is found, let him die, and we also will be my lord’s ^bslaves.” ¹⁰So he said, “Now let it also be according to your words; he with whom it is found shall be my slave, but the rest of you shall be innocent.” ¹¹Then they hurried, each man brought his sack down to the ground, and each man opened his sack. ¹²So he searched, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest, and ^athe cup was found in Benjamin’s sack. ¹³Then they ^atore their clothes, and each man loaded his donkey and returned to ^bthe city.

¹⁴Then Judah and his brothers came to Joseph’s house, and he was still there. So ^athey fell to the ground before him. ¹⁵And Joseph said to them, “What is this deed that you have done? Do you not know that such a man as I can indeed interpret ^aomens?” ¹⁶So Judah said, “What can we say to my lord? What can we speak? And how can we justify ourselves? God has found out the iniquity of your servants; behold, we are my lord’s ^aslaves, both we and the one in whose ¹possession the cup has been found.” ¹⁷But he said, “Far be it from me to do this. The man in whose ¹possession the cup has been found, he shall be my slave; but as for you, go up in peace to your father.”

Judah’s Plea for Benjamin

¹⁸Then Judah came near to him and said, “O my lord, may your servant please speak a word in my lord’s ears, and ¹^,^ado not be angry with your servant; for ^byou are equal to Pharaoh. ¹⁹“^aMy lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father or a brother?’ ²⁰“And we said to my lord, ‘We have an old father and ^aa little child of his old age. Now ^bhis brother is dead, so he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him.’ ²¹“Then you said to your servants, ‘^aBring him down to me that I may set my eyes on him.’ ²²“And we said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father; if he should leave his father, ¹his father would die.’ ²³“You said to your servants, however, ‘^aIf your youngest brother does not come down with you, you will not see my face again.’ ²⁴“Thus it happened that when we went up to your servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. ²⁵“^aAnd our father said, ‘Go back, buy us a little food.’ ²⁶“But we said, ‘We cannot go down. If our youngest brother is with us, then we will go down; for we cannot see the man’s face if our youngest brother is not with us.’ ²⁷“And your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that ^amy wife bore me two sons; ²⁸and the one went out from me, and ^aI said, “Surely he is torn to pieces,” and I have not seen him since. ²⁹‘If you take this one also from ¹me and harm befalls him, you will ^abring my gray hair down to Sheol in ²evil.’ ³⁰“So now, when I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us—¹^,^aand his life is bound up in the boy’s life— ³¹so it will be that when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. Thus your servants will ^abring the gray hair of your servant our father down to Sheol in sorrow. ³²“For your servant ^abecame a guarantee for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, ¹then I shall bear the sin before my father all my days.’ ³³“So now, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a slave to my lord, and let the boy go up with his brothers. ³⁴“For how shall I go up to my father if the boy is not with me, lest I see the evil that would ¹overtake my father?”

Joseph Sends for Jacob

45Then Joseph could not restrain himself before all those who stood by him, and he called out, “Have everyone go out from me.” So there ¹was no man with him ^awhen Joseph made himself known to his brothers. ²^aThen he ¹wept loudly. And the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. ³Then Joseph said to his brothers, “^aI am Joseph! ^bIs my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, for ^cthey were terrified at his presence.

⁴Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Please come near to me.” And they came near. And he said, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you ^asold into Egypt. ⁵“So now do not be grieved or angry ¹with yourselves because ^ayou sold me here, for ^bGod sent me before you to preserve life. ⁶“For the famine has been in the land ^athese two years, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. ⁷“^aSo God sent me before you to establish for you a remnant in the earth and to keep you alive for a great remnant of survivors. ⁸“So now, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has set me as a ^afather to Pharaoh and lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt. ⁹“Hurry and go up to my father, and ^asay to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, “God has set me as lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. ¹⁰“And you shall ¹live in the land of ^aGoshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children and your flocks and your herds and all that you have. ¹¹“There I will also ^aprovide for you, for there are still five years of famine to come, lest you and your household and all that you have be impoverished.”’ ¹²“And behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see, that it is my mouth which is speaking to you. ¹³“So you must tell my father of all my glory in Egypt and all that you have seen; and you must hurry and ^abring my father down here.” ¹⁴Then he fell on his brother Benjamin’s neck and ^awept, and Benjamin wept on his neck. ¹⁵He kissed all his brothers and wept on them, and afterward his brothers talked with him.

¹⁶Now ^athe ¹news was heard in Pharaoh’s house, saying, “Joseph’s brothers have come.” And it was good in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants. ¹⁷Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Say to your brothers, ‘Do this: load your beasts and ¹go to the land of Canaan, ¹⁸and take your father and your households and come to me, and ^aI will give you the ¹best of the land of Egypt, and you will eat the fat of the land.’ ¹⁹“Now you are commanded, ‘Do this: ¹take ^awagons from the land of Egypt for your little ones and for your wives, and bring your father and come. ²⁰‘Now do not ¹concern yourselves with your goods, for the ²best of all the land of Egypt is yours.’”

²¹Then the sons of Israel did so; and Joseph gave them ^awagons according to the ¹command of Pharaoh, and he gave them provisions for the journey. ²²To ¹each of them he gave ^achanges of garments, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver and ^bfive changes of garments. ²³Now to his father he sent ¹as follows: ten donkeys loaded with the ²best things of Egypt and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and sustenance for his father ³on the journey.

²⁴So he sent his brothers away, and they departed. And he said to them, “Do not be stirred up on the journey.” ²⁵Then they went up from Egypt, and came to the land of Canaan to their father Jacob. ²⁶And they told him, saying, “Joseph is still alive, and indeed he is ruler over all the land of Egypt.” But ¹his heart was stunned, for ^ahe did not believe them. ²⁷Yet they told him all the words of Joseph that he had spoken to them, and he saw the ^awagons that Joseph had sent to carry him. Then the spirit of their father Jacob revived. ²⁸And Israel said, “It is enough! My son Joseph is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.”

Jacob Moves to Egypt

46So Israel set out with all that he had and came to ^aBeersheba and offered sacrifices to the ^bGod of his father Isaac. ²^aAnd God spoke to Israel ¹in visions of the night and said, “^bJacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.” ³And He said, “^aI am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will ^bmake you a great nation there. ⁴“^aI Myself will go down with you to Egypt, and ^bI Myself will also bring you up again; and ^cJoseph will ¹close your eyes with his hand.”

⁵Then Jacob arose from Beersheba; and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob and their little ones and their wives in the ^awagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. ⁶And they took their livestock and their possessions, which they had accumulated in the land of Canaan, and they ^acame to Egypt, Jacob and all his seed with him: ⁷his sons and his grandsons with him, his daughters and his granddaughters, and all his seed he brought with him to Egypt.

⁸Now these are the ^anames of the sons of Israel—of Jacob and his sons—who were coming to Egypt: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn. ⁹The sons of Reuben: Hanoch and Pallu and Hezron and Carmi. ¹⁰The ^asons of Simeon: ¹Jemuel and Jamin and Ohad and ²Jachin and ³Zohar and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman. ¹¹The sons of Levi: ¹Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. ¹²The sons of Judah: Er and Onan and Shelah and Perez and Zerah (but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan). And the ^asons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul. ¹³The sons of Issachar: Tola and ¹Puvvah and ²Iob and Shimron. ¹⁴The sons of Zebulun: Sered and Elon and Jahleel. ¹⁵These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram, with his daughter Dinah; ¹all his sons and his daughters numbered thirty-three.

¹⁶The ^asons of Gad: ¹Ziphion and Haggi, Shuni and ²Ezbon, Eri and ³Arodi and Areli. ¹⁷The ^asons of Asher: Imnah and Ishvah and Ishvi and Beriah and their sister Serah. And the ^bsons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel. ¹⁸These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah; and she bore to Jacob these sixteen persons.

¹⁹The sons of Jacob’s wife Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. ²⁰^aNow to Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, bore to him. ²¹The ^asons of Benjamin: Bela and Becher and Ashbel, Gera and Naaman, ¹Ehi and Rosh, ²Muppim and ³Huppim and Ard. ²²These are the sons of Rachel, who were born to Jacob; there were fourteen persons in all.

²³The sons of Dan: ¹Hushim. ²⁴The sons of Naphtali: ¹Jahzeel and Guni and Jezer and ²Shillem.

²⁵These are the ^asons of Bilhah, whom ^bLaban gave to his daughter Rachel, and she bore these to Jacob; there were seven persons in all. ²⁶^aAll the persons belonging to Jacob, who came to Egypt, who came out of his loins, excluding the wives of Jacob’s sons, were sixty-six persons in all, ²⁷and the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt were ¹two; ^aall the persons of the house of Jacob, who came to Egypt, were seventy.

²⁸Now he sent Judah before him to Joseph, to point out the way before him to ^aGoshen; and they came into the land of Goshen. ²⁹And Joseph harnessed his chariot and went up to Goshen to meet his father Israel; as soon as he appeared ¹before him, he fell on his neck and ^awept on his neck a long time. ³⁰Then Israel said to Joseph, “Now I can die, since I have seen your face, that you are still alive.” ³¹And Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, “^aI will go up and tell Pharaoh and say to him, ‘My brothers and my father’s household, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me; ³²and the men are shepherds, for they have been ¹keepers of livestock; and they have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they have.’ ³³“And it will be when Pharaoh calls you and says, ‘^aWhat is your occupation?’ ³⁴then you shall say, ‘Your servants have been ¹^,^akeepers of livestock from our youth and until now, both we and our fathers,’ that you may ²live in the land of ^bGoshen; for every shepherd is ^can abomination to the Egyptians.”

Jacob’s Family Settles in Goshen

47Then ^aJoseph went in and told Pharaoh and said, “My father and my brothers and their flocks and their herds and all that they have, have come out of the land of Canaan; and behold, they are in the land of ^bGoshen.” ²And he took five men from among his brothers and ^aset them before Pharaoh. ³Then Pharaoh said to his brothers, “^aWhat is your occupation?” So they said to Pharaoh, “Your servants are ^bshepherds, both we and our fathers.” ⁴And they said to Pharaoh, “^aWe have come to sojourn in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks, for ^bthe famine is heavy in the land of Canaan. So now, please let your servants ¹^,^clive in the land of Goshen.” ⁵Then Pharaoh said to ¹Joseph, “Your father and your brothers have come to you. ⁶“The land of Egypt is ¹at your disposal; have your father and your brothers settle in ^athe best of the land, let them settle in the land of Goshen; and if you know any ^bexcellent men among them, then ²put them in charge of my livestock.”

⁷Then Joseph brought his father Jacob and stood him before Pharaoh; and Jacob ^ablessed Pharaoh. ⁸And Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How many are the days of the years of your life?” ⁹So Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days ^aof the years of my sojourning are ¹130; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not ²attained to ^bthe days of the years ³that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning.” ¹⁰And Jacob ^ablessed Pharaoh and went out from the presence of Pharaoh. ¹¹So Joseph settled his father and his brothers and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in ^athe best of the land, in the land of ^bRameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. ¹²And Joseph ^aprovided his father and his brothers and all his father’s household with ¹food, according to their little ones.

Joseph and the Famine

¹³Now there was no ¹food in all the land because the famine was very heavy, so that ^athe land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine. ¹⁴^aAnd Joseph gathered all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan for the grain which they bought, and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house. ¹⁵Then the money came to an end in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan. So all the Egyptians came to Joseph ¹and said, “Give us ²food, for ^awhy should we die in your presence? For our money ³is gone.” ¹⁶Then Joseph said, “Give up your livestock, and I will give you food for your livestock, since your money ¹is gone.” ¹⁷So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them ¹food in exchange for the horses and the ²flocks and the herds and the donkeys; and he ³fed them with ⁴food in exchange for all their livestock ⁵that year. ¹⁸Then that year came to an end. And they came to him the ¹next year and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord that our money has come to an end, and the ²livestock are my lord’s. There is nothing left ³for my lord except our bodies and our land. ¹⁹“Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for ¹food, and we and our land will be slaves to Pharaoh. So give us seed, that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate.”

²⁰So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for ¹every Egyptian sold his field because the famine was severe upon them. Thus the land became Pharaoh’s. ²¹As for the people, he moved them to the cities from one end of Egypt’s border to the other end. ²²Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh, and they ate off the allotment which Pharaoh gave them. Therefore, they did not sell their land. ²³Then Joseph said to the people, “Behold, I have today bought you and your land for Pharaoh; now, here is seed for you, and you may sow the land. ²⁴“And it will be, at the harvest you shall give a ^afifth to Pharaoh, and ¹four-fifths shall be your own for seed of the field and for your food and for those of your households and as food for your little ones.” ²⁵So they said, “You have kept us alive! Let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s slaves.” ²⁶And Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt valid to this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth; ^aonly the land of the priests ¹did not become Pharaoh’s.

²⁷Now Israel ¹lived in the land of Egypt, ²in Goshen, and they ^atook possession of property in it and ^bwere fruitful and became very numerous. ²⁸And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt ^aseventeen years; so the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years.

²⁹Then ^athe days for Israel to die drew near, and he called his son Joseph and said to him, “Please, if I have found favor in your sight, ^bplace now your hand under my thigh and ^cdeal with me in lovingkindness and truth. Please do not bury me in Egypt. ³⁰“But I will ^alie down with my fathers, and you will carry me out of Egypt and bury me in ^btheir burial place.” And he said, “I will do as you have said.” ³¹Then he said, “^aSwear to me.” So he swore to him. Then ^bIsrael bowed in worship at the head of the bed.

Israel Blesses Manasseh and Ephraim

48Now it happened after these things that ¹Joseph was told, “Behold, your father is sick.” So he took his two sons ^aManasseh and Ephraim with him. ²Then ¹it was told to Jacob, “Behold, your son Joseph has come to you,” so Israel strengthened himself and sat ²up in the bed. ³Then Jacob said to Joseph, “¹^,^aGod Almighty appeared to me at ^bLuz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, ⁴and He said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply, and I will make you an assembly of peoples, and I will give this land to your seed after you for ^aan everlasting possession.’ ⁵“So now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; ^aEphraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as ^bReuben and Simeon are. ⁶“But your kin that ¹have been born after them shall be yours; they shall be called by the ²names of their brothers in their inheritance. ⁷“Now as for me, when I came from ^aPaddan, ^bRachel died, ¹to my sorrow, in the land of Canaan on the journey, when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath; and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).”

⁸Then Israel ^asaw Joseph’s sons and said, “Who are these?” ⁹And Joseph said to his father, “^aThey are my sons, whom God has given me here.” So he said, “Bring them to me, please, that ^bI may bless them.” ¹⁰Now ^athe eyes of Israel were so dim from age that he could not see. Then ¹Joseph brought them close to him, and he ^bkissed them and embraced them. ¹¹Then Israel said to Joseph, “I never ¹expected to see your face, and behold, God has let me see your seed as well.” ¹²Then Joseph ¹took them from his knees and ^abowed with his face to the ground. ¹³And Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel’s left, and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel’s right, and brought them close to him. ¹⁴But Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, ¹crossing his hands, ²although ^aManasseh was the firstborn. ¹⁵And he blessed Joseph and said, “^aMay the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,^bThe God who has been my shepherd ¹throughout my life to this day,

¹⁶^aThe angel who has redeemed me from all evil,^bBless these boys;And may my name ¹live on in them,And the ²names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac;And ^cmay they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.”

¹⁷But Joseph saw that his father ^aset his right hand on Ephraim’s head, and it was displeasing in his sight; so he took hold of his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. ¹⁸And Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn. Place your right hand on his head.” ¹⁹But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know; he also will become a people, and he also will be great. However, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and ^ahis seed shall become the fullness of nations.” ²⁰^aAnd he blessed them that day, saying, “By you Israel will pronounce blessing, saying,‘May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh!’” Thus he put Ephraim before Manasseh.²¹Then Israel said to Joseph, “Behold, I am about to die, but ^aGod will be with you and ^bwill bring you back to the land of your fathers. ²²“And I give you one ¹portion more than your brothers, ^awhich I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow.”

Jacob Assembles His Sons

49Then Jacob summoned his sons and said, “Gather together that I may tell you what will befall you ^ain the last days.

²“Assemble together and hear, O sons of Jacob;And ^alisten to Israel your father.³“Reuben, you are my firstborn;My might and ^athe beginning of my vigor,¹Preeminent in dignity and ²preeminent in strength.⁴“¹Uncontrolled as water, you shall not have preeminence,^aBecause you went up to your father’s bed;Then you defiled it—he went up to my couch.⁵“^aSimeon and Levi are brothers;Their swords are implements of violence.⁶“^aLet my soul not enter into their council;Let not my glory be united with their assembly;Because in their anger they killed ¹men,And in their self-will they hamstrung ²oxen.⁷“Cursed be their anger, for it is strong;And their wrath, for it is cruel.^aI will divide them amongst Jacob,And scatter them in Israel.⁸“Judah, as for you, your brothers shall praise you;Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;^aYour father’s sons shall bow down to you.⁹“Judah is a ^alion’s whelp;From the prey, my son, you have gone up.^bHe ¹crouches, he lies down as a lion,And as a lioness, who ²dares rouse him up?¹⁰“^aThe scepter shall not depart from Judah,Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,¹Until Shiloh comes,And ^bto him shall be the obedience of the peoples.¹¹“¹^,^aHe ties his foal to the vine,And his donkey’s colt to the choice vine;^bHe washes his garments in wine,And his robes in the blood of grapes.¹²“His eyes are ¹dark from wine,And his teeth ²white from milk.¹³“^aZebulun will dwell at the seashore;And he shall be a shore for ships,And his flank shall be toward Sidon.¹⁴“Issachar is ¹a strong donkey,^aLying down between the ²sheepfolds.¹⁵“And he saw that a resting place was goodAnd that the land was pleasant,So he bowed his shoulder to bear burdens,And became a slave at forced labor.¹⁶“^aDan shall ^brender justice to his people,As one of the tribes of Israel.¹⁷“Dan shall be a serpent in the way,A horned snake in the path,That bites the horse’s heels,So that his rider falls backward.¹⁸“^aFor Your salvation I hope, O Yahweh.¹⁹“^aAs for Gad, ¹raiders shall raid him,But he will raid at their ²heels.²⁰“¹^,^aAs for ^bAsher, his ²food shall be ³rich,And he will yield royal dainties.²¹“^aNaphtali is a doe let loose,He gives beautiful words.²²“^aJoseph is a fruitful ¹bough,A fruitful ²bough by a spring;Its ³branches run over a wall.²³“And the archers bitterly attacked him and shot at him,And they bore a grudge against him;²⁴But his ^abow remained ¹firm,And ²^,^bhis arms were agile,From the hands of the ^cMighty One of Jacob,From there is ^dthe Shepherd, ^ethe Stone of Israel,²⁵From ^athe God of your father who helps you,And ¹^,^bby the ²Almighty who blesses youWith ^cblessings of heaven above,Blessings of the deep that lies beneath,Blessings of the breasts and of the womb.²⁶“The blessings of your fatherHave surpassed the blessings of my ancestorsUp to the ¹utmost bound of ^athe everlasting hills;May they be on the head of Joseph,And on the top of the head of the one distinguished among his brothers.²⁷“Benjamin is a ¹ravenous wolf;In the morning he devours the prey,And in the evening he divides the spoil.”

Jacob Breathes His Last

²⁸All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father spoke to them. So he blessed them. He blessed them, every one ¹with the blessing appropriate to him. ²⁹Then he commanded them and said to them, “I am about to be ^agathered to my people; ^bbury me with my fathers in the cave that is in ^cthe field of Ephron the Hittite, ³⁰in the ^acave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field from Ephron the Hittite as a possession for a burial site. ³¹“There they buried ^aAbraham and his wife ^bSarah, there they buried ^cIsaac and his wife Rebekah, and there I buried Leah— ³²the field and the cave that is in it, purchased from the sons of Heth.” ³³So Jacob finished commanding his sons. And he drew his feet into the bed and ^abreathed his last and was ^bgathered to his people.

50Then Joseph fell on his father’s face and wept over him and kissed him. ²And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians ^aembalmed Israel. ³Then the forty days to do this were fulfilled, because in this manner the days of embalming are fulfilled. And the Egyptians ^awept for him seventy days.

⁴Then the days of weeping for him were past, and Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, “If now I have found favor in your sight, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, ⁵‘^aMy father made me swear, saying, “Behold, I am about to die; in my grave ^bwhich I dug for myself in the land of Canaan, there you shall bury me.” So now, please let me go up and bury my father; then I will return.’” ⁶And Pharaoh said, “Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear.”

⁷So Joseph went up to bury his father, and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, ⁸and all the household of Joseph and his brothers and his father’s household; they left only their little ones and their flocks and their herds in the land of Goshen. ⁹There also went up with him both chariots and horsemen; and it was a very ¹immense camp. ¹⁰And they came to the ¹threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and they ^alamented there with a very great and ²immense lamentation; and he ³observed seven days of mourning for his father. ¹¹Now the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning at ¹the threshing floor of Atad, and they said, “This is an ²immense ³mourning for the Egyptians.” Therefore it was named ⁴Abel-mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.

Jacob’s Burial at Machpelah

¹²Thus his sons did for him as he had commanded them. ¹³Indeed, his sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in ^athe cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre, which Abraham had bought along with the field for his possession as a burial site from Ephron the Hittite. ¹⁴After he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers, and all who had gone up with him to bury his father.

¹⁵Then Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, and they said, “^aWhat if Joseph bears a grudge against us and returns back to us all the evil which we dealt against him!” ¹⁶So they ¹sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father commanded before he died, saying, ¹⁷‘Thus you shall say to Joseph, “Please forgive, I beg you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, for they dealt evil against you.”’ So now, please forgive the transgression of the slaves of the God of your father.” And Joseph wept when they spoke to him. ¹⁸Then his brothers also came and ^afell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your slaves.” ¹⁹But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place? ²⁰“As for you, ^ayou meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to do ¹what has happened on this day, to keep many people alive. ²¹“So now, do not be afraid; ^aI will provide for you and your little ones.” And he comforted them and spoke to their heart.

The Death of Joseph

²²Now Joseph stayed in Egypt, he and his father’s household, and Joseph lived 110 years. ²³And Joseph saw the third generation of Ephraim’s sons; also the sons of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were ^aborn on Joseph’s knees. ²⁴And Joseph said to his brothers, “^aI am about to die, but God will surely ¹take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He swore to ^bAbraham, to ^cIsaac, and to ^dJacob.” ²⁵Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely ¹take care of you, and ^ayou shall carry my bones up from here.” ²⁶So Joseph died at the age of 110 years; and ^athey embalmed him, and he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.