Genesis 35

35 ¹Then our Father told Jacob, "Get up, go to Bethel, stay there, and build an altar to me, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau."

²Jacob said to his household and all with him, "Discard the foreign gods among you, purify yourselves, and change your clothes. ³Let's go up to Bethel. I'll build an altar there to our Father, who answered me in my day of distress and stayed with me wherever I went."

⁴They gave Jacob all the foreign gods in their hands and earrings in their ears; he hid them under Shechem's oak. ⁵They set out; terror from our Father struck the surrounding cities, so no one pursued Jacob's sons. ⁶Jacob came to Luz (Bethel) in Canaan, with all his people. ⁷There he built an altar, naming it El-Bethel—house of our Father—for there he revealed himself to Jacob when he fled from his brother. ⁸Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died and was buried below Bethel under the oak, named Allon-bacuth, oak of weeping.

⁹Our Father appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him.

¹⁰Our Father said to him, "Your name is Jacob, but it will no longer be Jacob—your name is Israel." He named him Israel. ¹¹Our Father told him, "I am El Shaddai, your Father Almighty. Be fruitful, multiply. A nation, a company of nations, will come from you; kings will come from your body. ¹²The land I gave Abraham and Isaac, I will give you; I will give to your offspring after you."

¹³Then our Father went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him. ¹⁴Jacob set up a pillar where our Father had spoken with him, a pillar of stone, and he poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. ¹⁵Jacob named the place where our Father had spoken with him: Bethel.

Rachel's Last Son

¹⁶They left Bethel, and while still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel went into labor—hard labor. ¹⁷During her hard labor, the midwife told her, "Don't be afraid—this too is a son."

¹⁸As her soul was leaving her—she was dying—she named him Ben-oni, son of my sorrow; but his father called him Benjamin, son of the right hand. ^a a v18 Rachel's dying word named her son Ben-oni, "son of my sorrow." His father Jacob renamed him Benjamin, "son of the right hand" — turning grief into a name of strength and chosen place. ¹⁹So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). ²⁰Jacob set a pillar on her grave—it is Rachel's grave pillar to this day.

²¹Israel traveled and camped beyond Migdal-eder, the tower of the flock. ²²While Israel lived in that land, Reuben went and slept with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel heard. Jacob had twelve sons.

²³The sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, then Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. ²⁴The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. ²⁵The sons of Bilhah, Rachel's maid: Dan and Naphtali. ²⁶Sons of Zilpah, Leah's servant: Gad and Asher. These are Jacob's sons, born to him in Paddan-aram.

²⁷Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, Kiriath-arba (Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had lived.

²⁸Isaac lived 180 years. ²⁹Isaac breathed his last, died, and was gathered to his people—old, full of days. His sons Esau and Jacob buried him.