אָח

…until your brother’s rage against you wanes and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send for you and bring you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?”

“Go at once to Paddan-aram, to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel, and take a wife from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.

So Isaac sent Jacob to Paddan-aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau.

“My brothers,” Jacob asked the shepherds, “where are you from?” “We are from Haran,” they answered.

As soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his mother’s brother Laban, with Laban’s sheep, he went up and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle’s sheep.

He told Rachel that he was Rebekah’s son, a relative of her father, and she ran and told her father.

Laban said to him, “Just because you are my relative, should you work for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.”

So he took his relatives with him, pursued Jacob for seven days, and overtook him in the hill country of Gilead.

Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country of Gilead when Laban overtook him, and Laban and his relatives camped there as well.

If you find your gods with anyone here, he shall not live! In the presence of our relatives, see for yourself if anything is yours, and take it back.” For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the idols.

You have searched all my goods! Have you found anything that belongs to you? Put it here before my brothers and yours, that they may judge between the two of us.

…and he said to his relatives, “Gather some stones.” So they took stones and made a mound, and there by the mound they ate.

Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and invited his relatives to eat a meal. And after they had eaten, they spent the night on the mountain.

Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.

When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you—he and four hundred men with him.”

Please deliver me from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid that he may come and attack me and the mothers and children with me.

Jacob spent the night there, and from what he had brought with him, he selected a gift for his brother Esau:

He instructed the one in the lead, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘To whom do you belong, where are you going, and whose animals are these before you?’

But Jacob himself went on ahead and bowed to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.

“I already have plenty, my brother,” Esau replied. “Keep what belongs to you.”

Then Shechem said to Dinah’s father and brothers, “Grant me this favor, and I will give you whatever you ask.

Three days later, while they were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons (Dinah’s brothers Simeon and Levi) took their swords, went into the unsuspecting city, and slaughtered every male.

Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and settle there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.”

There Jacob built an altar, and he called that place El-bethel, because it was there that God had revealed Himself to Jacob as he fled from his brother.

Later, Esau took his wives and sons and daughters and all the people of his household, along with his livestock, all his other animals, and all the property he had acquired in Canaan, and he moved to a land far away from his brother Jacob.

This is the account of Jacob. When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was tending the flock with his brothers, the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.

“Do you intend to reign over us?” his brothers asked. “Will you actually rule us?” So they hated him even more because of his dream and his statements.

Then Joseph had another dream and told it to his brothers. “Look,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

He told his father and brothers, but his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream that you have had? Will your mother and brothers and I actually come and bow down to the ground before you?”

And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept in mind what he had said.

Some time later, Joseph’s brothers had gone to pasture their father’s flocks near Shechem.

Israel said to him, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flocks at Shechem? Get ready; I am sending you to them.” “I am ready,” Joseph replied.

Then Israel told him, “Go now and see how your brothers and the flocks are faring, and bring word back to me.” So he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron. And when Joseph arrived in Shechem,

“I am looking for my brothers,” Joseph replied. “Can you please tell me where they are pasturing their flocks?”

“They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” So Joseph set out after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

“Here comes that dreamer!” they said to one another.

So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the robe of many colors he was wearing—

Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?

Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay a hand on him; for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And they agreed.

…returned to his brothers, and said, “The boy is gone! What am I going to do?”

About that time, Judah left his brothers and settled near a man named Hirah, an Adullamite.