Genesis 35:1-15 ▼

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.

14 Jacob set up a marker at the place where He had spoken to him—a stone marker. He poured a drink offering on it and anointed it with oil.

15 Jacob named the place where God had spoken with him Bethel.