Jacob Shows His Bravery

33 Jacob looked and saw Esau coming. Esau was coming and 400 men were with him. Jacob divided his family into four groups. Leah and her children were in one group, Rachel and Joseph were in one group, and the two maids and their children were in two groups. ²Jacob put the maids with their children first. Then Jacob put Leah and her children behind them. And Jacob put Rachel and Joseph in the last place. ³Jacob himself went out toward Esau. So he was the first person Esau came to. Jacob bowed on the ground seven times while he was walking toward his brother. ⁴When Esau saw Jacob, he ran to meet him. Esau put his arms around Jacob and hugged his neck and kissed him. Then they both cried. ⁵Esau looked up and saw the women and children. He said, “Who are all these people with you?” Jacob answered, “These are the children that God gave me. God has been good to me.” ⁶Then the two maids and the children with them went to Esau. They bowed down before him. ⁷Then Leah and the children with her went to Esau and bowed down. And then Rachel and Joseph went to Esau and bowed down. ⁸Esau said, “Who were all those people I saw while I was coming here? And what were all those animals for?” Jacob answered, “Those are my gifts to you so that you might accept me.” ⁹But Esau said, “You don’t have to give me gifts, brother. I have enough for myself.” ¹⁰Jacob said, “No! I beg you! If you truly accept me, then please accept the gifts I give you. I am very happy to see your face again. It is like seeing the face of God. I am very happy to see that you accept me. ¹¹So I beg that you also accept the gifts I give you. God has been very good to me. I have more than I need.” In this way Jacob begged Esau to take the gifts. So Esau accepted the gifts. ¹²Then Esau said, “Now you can continue your journey. I will go with you.” ¹³But Jacob said to him, “You know that my children are weak. And I must be careful with my flocks and their young animals. If I force them to walk too far in one day, all the animals will die. ¹⁴So you go on ahead. I will follow you slowly. I will go slow enough for the cattle and other animals to be safe. And I will go slow enough so that my children will not become too tired. I will meet you in Seir.” ¹⁵So Esau said, “Then I will leave some of my men with you to help you.” But Jacob said, “That is very kind of you. But there is no need to do that.” ¹⁶So that day Esau started on his trip back to Seir. ¹⁷But Jacob went to Succoth. In that place he built a house for himself and small barns for his cattle. That is why the place was named Succoth.* ¹⁸Jacob safely ended his trip from Paddan Aram when he came to the town of Shechem in Canaan. Jacob made his camp in a field near the city. ¹⁹Jacob bought the field where he camped from the family of Hamor, father of Shechem. Jacob paid 100 pieces of silver. ²⁰Jacob built an altar there to worship God. Jacob named the place “El, the God of Israel.”

Succoth A town east of the Jordan River. This name means “temporary shelters.”

The Rape of Dinah

34 Dinah was the daughter of Leah and Jacob. One day, Dinah went out to see the women of that place. ²Hamor was the king of that land. His son Shechem saw Dinah. Shechem kidnapped her and raped her. ³Then Shechem fell in love with Dinah and wanted to marry her. ⁴Shechem told his father, “Please get this girl for me so that I can marry her.” ⁵Jacob learned that the boy had done this very bad thing to his daughter. But all Jacob’s sons were out in the field with the cattle. So Jacob did nothing until they came home. ⁶At that time, Shechem’s father, Hamor, went to talk with Jacob. ⁷In the fields, Jacob’s sons heard the news about what happened. They were very angry when they heard this. They were mad because Shechem had brought shame to Israel by raping Jacob’s daughter. The brothers came in from the fields as soon as they heard about the terrible thing Shechem had done. ⁸But Hamor talked to the brothers. He said, “My son Shechem wants Dinah very much. Please let him marry her. ⁹This marriage will show we have a special agreement. Then our men can marry your women, and your men can marry our women. ¹⁰You can live in the same land with us. You will be free to own the land and to trade here.” ¹¹Shechem also talked to Jacob and the brothers. Shechem said, “Please accept me. I will do anything you ask me to do. ¹²I will give you any gift* you want if you only allow me to marry Dinah. I will give you anything you ask, but let me marry Dinah.” ¹³Jacob’s sons decided to lie to Shechem and his father. The brothers were still mad because Shechem had done such a bad thing to their sister Dinah. ¹⁴So the brothers said to him, “We cannot allow you to marry our sister because you are not yet circumcised.* It would be wrong for our sister to marry you. ¹⁵But we will allow you to marry her if you do this one thing: Every man in your town must become circumcised like us. ¹⁶Then your men can marry our women, and our men can marry your women. Then we will become one people. ¹⁷If you refuse to be circumcised, then we will take Dinah away.” ¹⁸This agreement made Hamor and Shechem very happy. ¹⁹Shechem was very happy to do what Dinah’s brothers asked.

Revenge

Shechem was the most honored man in his family. ²⁰Hamor and Shechem went to the meeting place of their city. They spoke to the men of the city and said, ²¹“These people of Israel want to be friends with us. We want to let them live in our land and be at peace with us. We have enough land for all of us. We are free to marry their women. And we are happy to give them our women for marriage. ²²But there is one thing that all our men must agree to do. All our men must agree to become circumcised* the same as the people of Israel. ²³If we do this, then we will become rich from all their cattle and animals. So we should make this agreement with them, and they will stay here with us.” ²⁴All the men who heard this in the meeting place agreed with Hamor and Shechem. And every man was circumcised at that time. ²⁵Three days later, the men who were circumcised* were still sore. Two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, knew that the men would be weak at this time. So they went to the city and killed all the men there. ²⁶Dinah’s brothers, Simeon and Levi, killed Hamor and his son Shechem. Then they took Dinah out of Shechem’s house and left. ²⁷Jacob’s sons went to the city and stole everything that was there. They were still angry because of what Shechem did to their sister. ²⁸So the brothers took all their animals. They took all their donkeys and everything else in the city and in the fields. ²⁹The brothers took everything those people owned. The brothers even took the wives and children. ³⁰But Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have given me much trouble. All the people in this place will hate me. All the Canaanite people and the Perizzite people will turn against me. There are only a few of us. If the people in this place gather together to fight against us, then I will be destroyed. And all our people will be destroyed with me.” ³¹But the brothers said, “Should we let those people treat our sister like a prostitute?* No! Those people were wrong to do that to our sister!”

gift Or, “dowry.” Here, the money a man paid for a wife. circumcise(d) Cutting the foreskin from a man. In Israel this was proof that a man had made a special agreement to obey God’s laws and teachings. prostitute A woman paid by men for sexual sin.