Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
Genesis 28
Jacob Is Sent to Paddan-aram
Isaac called Jacob, blessed him, and gave him this command: “Do not marry a Canaanite woman. Go at once to Paddan-aram, to the household of your mother’s father Bethuel. Marry one of the daughters of your mother’s brother Laban.
May God Almighty bless you, make you fruitful, and multiply you, so that you become an assembly of peoples. May he give Abraham’s blessing to you and your descendants with you, so that you may possess the land where you live as a stranger, the land God gave Abraham.”
Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean. Laban was the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.
Esau’s Further Marriage
Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan-aram to marry a woman from there. In blessing him, Isaac had commanded, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman.” Jacob had listened to his father and mother and gone to Paddan-aram.
Esau understood that his father Isaac disapproved of Canaanite women. So he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, daughter of Abraham’s son Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth, in addition to the wives he already had.
A Dream on the Journey
Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. He came to a place and spent the night there because the sun had set. He took one of the stones there, placed it by his head, and lay down to sleep in that place.
He dreamed: there was a stairway standing on the earth, its top reaching the heavens. And there were God’s messengers, going up and coming down on it. And there was the LORD, standing above it. He said, “I am the LORD, the God of your grandfather Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give the land you are lying on to you and your descendants.
Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth. You will spread out to the west and east, to the north and south. Through you and your descendants all the families of the earth will be blessed. Look, I am with you. I will guard you wherever you go and bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.”
Jacob woke from sleep and said, “The LORD really is in this place, and I did not know it!”
He was afraid. “How fearsome this place is!” he said. “This is nothing less than God’s house, the gate of the heavens!”
The Stone and the Vow
Early in the morning Jacob took the stone he had placed by his head and set it upright as a pillar. He poured oil over its top.
He named the place Bethel, though the city had formerly been called Luz.
Jacob made a vow: “If God is with me and guards me on this journey, if he gives me bread to eat and clothes to wear, and I return to my father’s home in peace, then the LORD will be my God. This stone I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house. And of everything you give me, I will surely give you a tenth.”