Genesis 35:1-13 ▼

1 God said to Jacob: Go up now to Bethel. Settle there and build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.

2 So Jacob told his household and all who were with him: “Get rid of the foreign gods among you; then purify yourselves and change your clothes.

3 Let us now go up to Bethel so that I might build an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.”

4 They gave Jacob all the foreign gods in their possession and also the rings they had in their ears and Jacob buried them under the oak that is near Shechem.

5 Then, as they set out, a great terror fell upon the surrounding towns, so that no one pursued the sons of Jacob.

6 Thus Jacob and all the people who were with him arrived in Luz (now Bethel) in the land of Canaan.

7 There he built an altar and called the place El-Bethel, for it was there that God had revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

8 Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died. She was buried under the oak below Bethel, and so it was named Allon-bacuth.

9 On Jacob’s arrival from Paddan-aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him.

10 God said to him: Your name is Jacob. You will no longer be named Jacob, but Israel will be your name. So he was named Israel.

11 Then God said to him: I am God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply. A nation, indeed an assembly of nations, will stem from you, and kings will issue from your loins.

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

13 Then God departed from him.