Chronological Plan

¹Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

²When Jacob saw them, he said, “This is the camp of God!” So he named that place Mahanaim.

³Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.

⁴He instructed them: “This is what you are to say to my lord Esau: ‘Your servant Jacob says, I have been staying with Laban and have remained there till now.

⁵I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, male and female servants. Now I am sending this message to my lord, that I may find favor in your eyes.’ ”

⁶When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.”

⁷In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well.

⁸He thought, “If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape.”

⁹Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, LORD, you who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,’

¹⁰I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two camps.

¹¹Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.

¹²But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’ ”

¹³He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau:

¹⁴two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,

¹⁵thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.

¹⁶He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, “Go ahead of me, and keep some space between the herds.”

¹⁷He instructed the one in the lead: “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘Who do you belong to, and where are you going, and who owns all these animals in front of you?’

¹⁸then you are to say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he is coming behind us.’ ”

¹⁹He also instructed the second, the third and all the others who followed the herds: “You are to say the same thing to Esau when you meet him.

²⁰And be sure to say, ‘Your servant Jacob is coming behind us.’ ” For he thought, “I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead; later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me.”

²¹So Jacob’s gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp.

²²That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.

²³After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.

²⁴So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.

²⁵When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.

²⁶Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

²⁷The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered.

²⁸Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

²⁹Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

³⁰So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

³¹The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.

³²Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.

¹Jacob looked up and there was Esau, coming with his four hundred men; so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel and the two female servants.

²He put the female servants and their children in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph in the rear.

³He himself went on ahead and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.

⁴But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept.

⁵Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children. “Who are these with you?” he asked. Jacob answered, “They are the children God has graciously given your servant.”

⁶Then the female servants and their children approached and bowed down.

⁷Next, Leah and her children came and bowed down. Last of all came Joseph and Rachel, and they too bowed down.

⁸Esau asked, “What’s the meaning of all these flocks and herds I met?” “To find favor in your eyes, my lord,” he said.

⁹But Esau said, “I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself.”

¹⁰“No, please!” said Jacob. “If I have found favor in your eyes, accept this gift from me. For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably.

¹¹Please accept the present that was brought to you, for God has been gracious to me and I have all I need.” And because Jacob insisted, Esau accepted it.

¹²Then Esau said, “Let us be on our way; I’ll accompany you.”

¹³But Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are tender and that I must care for the ewes and cows that are nursing their young. If they are driven hard just one day, all the animals will die.

¹⁴So let my lord go on ahead of his servant, while I move along slowly at the pace of the flocks and herds before me and the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.”

¹⁵Esau said, “Then let me leave some of my men with you.” “But why do that?” Jacob asked. “Just let me find favor in the eyes of my lord.”

¹⁶So that day Esau started on his way back to Seir.

¹⁷Jacob, however, went to Sukkoth, where he built a place for himself and made shelters for his livestock. That is why the place is called Sukkoth.

¹⁸After Jacob came from Paddan Aram, he arrived safely at the city of Shechem in Canaan and camped within sight of the city.

¹⁹For a hundred pieces of silver, he bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, the plot of ground where he pitched his tent.

²⁰There he set up an altar and called it El Elohe Israel.

¹Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the land.

²When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the ruler of that area, saw her, he took her and raped her.

³His heart was drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob; he loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her.

⁴And Shechem said to his father Hamor, “Get me this girl as my wife.”

⁵When Jacob heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in the fields with his livestock; so he did nothing about it until they came home.

⁶Then Shechem’s father Hamor went out to talk with Jacob.

⁷Meanwhile, Jacob’s sons had come in from the fields as soon as they heard what had happened. They were shocked and furious, because Shechem had done an outrageous thing in Israel by sleeping with Jacob’s daughter—a thing that should not be done.

⁸But Hamor said to them, “My son Shechem has his heart set on your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife.

⁹Intermarry with us; give us your daughters and take our daughters for yourselves.

¹⁰You can settle among us; the land is open to you. Live in it, trade in it, and acquire property in it.”

¹¹Then Shechem said to Dinah’s father and brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and I will give you whatever you ask.

¹²Make the price for the bride and the gift I am to bring as great as you like, and I’ll pay whatever you ask me. Only give me the young woman as my wife.”

¹³Because their sister Dinah had been defiled, Jacob’s sons replied deceitfully as they spoke to Shechem and his father Hamor.

¹⁴They said to them, “We can’t do such a thing; we can’t give our sister to a man who is not circumcised. That would be a disgrace to us.

¹⁵We will enter into an agreement with you on one condition only: that you become like us by circumcising all your males.

¹⁶Then we will give you our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves. We’ll settle among you and become one people with you.

¹⁷But if you will not agree to be circumcised, we’ll take our sister and go.”

¹⁸Their proposal seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem.

¹⁹The young man, who was the most honored of all his father’s family, lost no time in doing what they said, because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter.

²⁰So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city to speak to the men of their city.

²¹“These men are friendly toward us,” they said. “Let them live in our land and trade in it; the land has plenty of room for them. We can marry their daughters and they can marry ours.

²²But the men will agree to live with us as one people only on the condition that our males be circumcised, as they themselves are.

²³Won’t their livestock, their property and all their other animals become ours? So let us agree to their terms, and they will settle among us.”

²⁴All the men who went out of the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male in the city was circumcised.

²⁵Three days later, while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male.

²⁶They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword and took Dinah from Shechem’s house and left.

²⁷The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the city where their sister had been defiled.

²⁸They seized their flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else of theirs in the city and out in the fields.

²⁹They carried off all their wealth and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses.

³⁰Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me obnoxious to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people living in this land. We are few in number, and if they join forces against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.”

³¹But they replied, “Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?”