Genesis 28

Revised Geneva Translation

28 Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, and said to him, “Do not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.

² “Arise, go to Padan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and there take a wife from the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.

³ “And God All Sufficient bless you and make you increase and multiply you, so that you may be a multitude of people,

⁴ “and give you the blessing of Abraham—to you and to your seed with you—so that you may inherit the land wherein you are a stranger, which God gave to Abraham.”

⁵ Thus, Isaac sent forth Jacob; and he went to Padan Aram, to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramite, brother to Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother.

⁶ Now, Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him to Padan Aram to fetch a wife from there, and given him a charge when he blessed him, saying, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,”

⁷ and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Padan Aram.

⁸ Also, Esau, seeing that the daughters of Canaan displeased Isaac, his father,

⁹ then went to Ishmael and added to the wives which he had Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.

¹⁰ Now Jacob departed from Beersheba and went to Haran,

¹¹ And he came to a place and stayed there all night because the Sun was down. And he took from the stones of the place and laid them under his head and slept in the same place.

¹² Then he dreamed; and behold, there stood a ladder upon the Earth. And the top of it reached up to Heaven. And lo, the angels of God went up and down by it.

¹³ And behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, “I am the LORD God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. The land upon the which you sleep I will give you and your seed.

¹⁴ “And your seed shall be as the dust of the Earth; and you shall spread out to the west and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. And in you and in your seed shall all the families of the Earth be blessed.

¹⁵ “And lo, I am with you and will keep you, wherever you go, and will bring you back into this land. For I will not forsake you until I have performed that which I have promised you.”

¹⁶ Then Jacob awoke out of his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place; and I was not aware.”

¹⁷ And he was afraid, and said, “How fearful is this place! This is none other but the House of God; and this is the Gate of Heaven.”

¹⁸ Then Jacob rose up early in the morning and took the stone that he had laid under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil upon the top of it.

¹⁹ And he called the name of that place “Bethel”. But the name of that city was at the first called “Luz”.

²⁰ Then Jacob vowed a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey which I go and will give me bread to eat and clothes to put on,

²¹ “so that I come back to my father’s house in safety, then shall the LORD be my God.”

²² “And this stone which I have set up as a pillar shall be God’s House. And of all that You shall give me, I will give a tenth to You.”