1 God said to Jacob, “ Get up! Go to Bethel and settle there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.”
2 So Jacob said to his family and all who were with him, “ Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you. Purify yourselves and change your clothes.
3 We must get up and go to Bethel. I will build an altar there to the God who answered me in my day of distress. He has been with me everywhere I have gone.”
4 Then they gave Jacob all their foreign gods and their earrings , and Jacob hid them under the oak near Shechem.
5 When they set out, a terror from God came over the cities around them, and they did not pursue Jacob’s sons.
6 So Jacob and all who were with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel ) in the land of Canaan.
7 Jacob built an altar there and called the place God of Bethel because it was there that God had revealed Himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.
8 Deborah, the one who had nursed and raised Rebekah, died and was buried under the oak south of Bethel. So Jacob named it Oak of Weeping .
9 God appeared to Jacob again after he returned from Paddan-aram, and He blessed him.
10 God said to him: Your name is Jacob; you will no longer be named Jacob, but your name will be Israel. So He named him Israel.
11 God also said to him: I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation, indeed an assembly of nations, will come from you, and kings will descend from you.
12 I will give to you the land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac. And I will give the land to your future descendants.
13 Then God withdrew from him at the place where He had spoken to him.
