Genesis 35:1-7 ▼

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.