Genesis 35

¹ God said to Jacob, ‘Move on now and go to Bethel and settle there. Make an altar there for the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.’

² Jacob said to his family and to all who were with him, ‘Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you; wash, and change your clothes.

³ We must move on and go to Bethel. There I will make an altar for the God who heard me when I was in distress, and gave me his help on the journey I made.’

⁴ They gave Jacob all the foreign gods in their possession, and the earrings that they were wearing. Jacob buried them under the oak tree near Shechem.

⁵ They broke camp; a divine terror struck the towns round about, and no one pursued the sons of Jacob.

⁶ When Jacob arrived at Luz in the land of Canaan-Bethel, in other words-and all the people with him,

⁷ he built an altar there, giving the place the name Bethel, because it was there that God had appeared to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

⁸ Deborah, who had been Rebekah’s nurse, died and was buried below Bethel, under the oak tree; so they named it the Oak of Tears.

⁹ Once more God appeared to Jacob on his return from Paddan-aram, and blessed him.

¹⁰ God said to him, ‘Your name is Jacob, but from now on you shall be named not Jacob but Israel’. Accordingly they named him Israel.

¹¹ God said to him, ‘I am El Shaddai. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation, indeed a group of nations shall descend from you. Even kings shall be numbered among your descendants.

¹² I give you this land, the land I gave to Abraham and to Isaac; and I will give this land to your descendants after you.’

¹³ Then God went up from him.

¹⁴ Jacob raised a monument in the place where he had spoken with him, a stone monument, on which he made a libation and poured oil.

¹⁵ Jacob named the place Bethel where God had spoken with him.

¹⁶ They left Bethel, and while they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to be in labour, and her pains were severe.

¹⁷ But in her difficult delivery the midwife said to her, ‘Do not be afraid; you have another son here’.

¹⁸ At the moment when she breathed her last, for she was dying, she named him Ben-oni. His father however named him Benjamin[*a]

¹⁹ So Rachel died and was buried on the road to Ephrath, at Bethlehem.

²⁰ Jacob raised a monument on her grave, and this is the monument of the tomb of Rachel which is still there today.

²¹ Israel left and pitched his tent beyond Migdal-eder.

²² While Israel was living in that district, Reuben went and slept with Bilhah his father’s concubine, and Israel learned of it.

²³ The sons of Leah: Jacob’s eldest son Reuben, then Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun.

²⁴ The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.

²⁵ The sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s slave-girl: Dan and Naphtali.

²⁶ The sons of Zilpah, Leah’s slave-girl: Gad and Asher. These are the sons born to Jacob in Paddan-aram.

²⁷ Jacob reached the house of his father Isaac at Mamre, at Kiriath-arba-or Hebron-where Abraham and Isaac had stayed.

²⁸ Isaac was one hundred and eighty years old

²⁹ when he breathed his last. He died and was gathered to his people, an old man who had enjoyed his full span of life. His sons Esau and Jacob buried him.