Genèse 35

¹Then God said to Jacob, “Up, and go to Bethel, and make your home there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you as you fled from your brother Esau.” ²So Jacob told his family and everyone with him, “Get rid of every foreign god you have among you. Make yourselves clean and put on fresh clothes. ³Then let us set out and go up to Bethel. I will make an altar there to the God who answered me when I was in trouble and has stayed with me on every road I have traveled.” ⁴They handed over to Jacob all the foreign gods they had, along with the rings from their ears, and Jacob buried them under the great tree near Shechem. ⁵As they moved on, a dread sent by God came over the towns around them, and no one went after Jacob’s sons. ⁶Jacob arrived at Luz in the land of Canaan, the place now known as Bethel, together with all the people in his company. ⁷There he built an altar and named the place El-Bethel, “God of Bethel”, because it was there God had shown himself to him as he was fleeing from his brother. ⁸Deborah, who had nursed Rebekah, died there and was buried beneath the oak below Bethel. So the tree came to be called Allon-bacuth, “Oak of Weeping”.

⁹Now that Jacob had come back from Paddan-aram, God appeared to him once more and blessed him. ¹⁰God said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but from now on that will not be your name. Your name will be Israel.” So he gave him the name Israel. ¹¹God also said to him, “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and grow in number. A nation, a whole assembly of nations, will come from you, and kings will be born from your line. ¹²The land that I gave to Abraham and to Isaac is yours; I give it to you, and to your descendants after you I will give the land.” ¹³And God rose and left him there, at the place where he had been speaking with him. ¹⁴There, where God had spoken with him, Jacob raised a standing stone, and he poured a drink offering over it and oil as well. ¹⁵And the place where God had spoken with him, Jacob called Bethel. ¹⁶They moved on from Bethel, and while there was still a stretch of road left before Ephrath, Rachel’s time came, and her labor was very hard. ¹⁷When her labor was at its worst, the midwife told her, “Do not be afraid; this one is a son for you too.” ¹⁸As her life was slipping away, for she was dying, she called him Ben-oni, “son of my sorrow”. His father, though, called him Benjamin, “son of the right hand”. ¹⁹Rachel died and was laid to rest beside the road to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem. ²⁰Jacob raised a standing stone over her grave; it is the stone of Rachel’s grave, and it stands there to this day. ²¹Israel traveled on and pitched his tent on the far side of Migdal-eder. ²²During Israel’s stay in that land, Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and word of it reached Israel. There were twelve sons of Jacob.^{a 23}Leah’s sons were Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, then Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun. ²⁴Rachel’s sons were Joseph and Benjamin. ²⁵The sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s slave woman, were Dan and Naphtali. ²⁶The sons of Zilpah, Leah’s slave woman, were Gad and Asher. These were Jacob’s sons, born to him in Paddan-aram. ²⁷Jacob finally reached his father Isaac at Mamre, by Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where first Abraham and then Isaac had lived as foreigners. ²⁸Isaac lived to the age of 180. ²⁹Isaac’s breath failed, and he died and was gathered to his people, an old man who had his fill of years. His sons Esau and Jacob laid him in the grave.