1. God told Jacob, “Return to Bethel, where I appeared to you when you were running from your brother Esau. Make your home there and build an altar for me.”
2. Jacob said to his family and to everyone else who was travelling with him:Get rid of your foreign gods! Then make yourselves acceptable to worship God and put on clean clothes.
3. Afterwards, we'll go to Bethel. I will build an altar there for God, who answered my prayers when I was in trouble and who has always been at my side.
4. So everyone gave Jacob their idols and their earrings, and he buried them under the oak tree near Shechem.
5. While Jacob and his family were travelling through Canaan, God terrified the people in the towns so much that no one dared bother them.
23-26. Jacob had twelve sons while living in northern Syria. His firstborn Reuben was the son of Leah, who later gave birth to Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. Leah's servant Zilpah had two sons: Gad and Asher.Jacob and his wife Rachel had Joseph and Benjamin. Rachel's servant woman Bilhah had two more sons: Dan and Naphtali.
28-29. Isaac died at the ripe old age of one hundred and eighty, then his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.