Genesis 35:1-14
Return to Bethel
1 God said to Jacob, “Get up! Go to Bethel and settle there.(A) Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.”(B)
2 So Jacob said to his family and all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you.(C) Purify yourselves and change your clothes.(D)
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.(E) He has been with me everywhere I have gone.”(F)
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.(G)
6 So Jacob and all who were with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel(H)) in the land of Canaan.
7 Jacob built an altar there and called the place God of Bethel(a) 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,(b)(I) died and was buried under the oak south of Bethel. So Jacob named it Oak of Weeping.(c)
Footnotes:
a.
Genesis 35:7: Or El-bethel
b.
Genesis 35:8: Lit Deborah, Rebekah’s wet nurse; Gn 24:59
c.
Genesis 35:8: Or Allon-bacuth
d.
Genesis 35:11: Lit will come from your loins
e.
Genesis 35:13: Lit went up