Genesis 28:1-9 - Jacob Flees To Haran

¹ So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him, and said to him, “You shall not marry one of the women of Canaan. ² Arise, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and take from there as a wife for yourself one of the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. ³ May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, so that you may become a [great] company of peoples. ⁴ May He also give the blessing of Abraham to you and your descendants with you, that you may inherit the [promised] land of your sojournings, which He gave to Abraham.” ⁵ Then Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

⁶ Now Esau noticed that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan-aram to take a wife for himself from there, and that as he blessed him he gave him a prohibition, saying, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,” ⁷ and that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan-aram. ⁸ So Esau realized that [his two wives] the daughters of Canaan displeased Isaac his father; ⁹ and [to appease his parents] Esau went to [the family of] Ishmael and took as his wife, in addition to the wives he [already] had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth [Ishmael’s firstborn son].

¹ Then Jacob went on his way and came to the land of the people of the East [near Haran]. ² As he looked, he saw a well in the field, and three flocks of sheep lying there [resting] beside it because the flocks were watered from that well. Now the stone on the mouth of the well [that covered and protected it] was large, ³ and when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well, water the sheep, and [afterward] replace the stone on the mouth of the well.

⁴ Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where are you from?” And they said, “We are from Haran.”

⁵ So he said to them, “Do you know Laban the grandson of Nahor [Abraham’s brother]?” And they replied, “We know him.”

⁶ And he asked them, “Is it well with him?” And they said, “He is doing well; look, here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep!” ⁷ Jacob said, “Look, the sun is still high [overhead]; it is a long time before the flocks need to be gathered [in their folds for the night]. Water the sheep, and go, and return them to their pasture.”

⁸ But they said, “We cannot [leave] until all the flocks are gathered together, and the shepherds roll the stone from the mouth of the well; then we will water the sheep.”

⁹ While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess. ¹⁰ When Jacob saw [his cousin] Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother, and Laban’s sheep, he came up and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered the flock of Laban, his uncle. ¹¹ Then Jacob kissed Rachel [in greeting], and he raised his voice and wept. ¹² Jacob told Rachel he was her father’s relative, Rebekah’s son; and she ran and told her father.

¹³ When Laban heard of the arrival of Jacob, his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced and kissed him and brought him to his house. Then he told Laban all these things.

¹⁴ Then Laban said to him, “You are my bone and my flesh.” And Jacob stayed with him a month.