Genesis 28

1So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him. He commanded him, “Do not marry a woman from the daughters of Canaan.

2Go at once to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father, and take a wife for yourself there from the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.

3May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, so that you become a community of peoples.

4May he give you and your offspring with you the blessing of Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham.”

5So Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau.

6Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, “Do not marry a woman from the daughters of Canaan,”

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

8Esau realized how much his father Isaac disliked the daughters of Canaan.

9So Esau went to Ishmael and married Mahalath the daughter of Abraham’s son Ishmael, the sister of Nebaioth, in addition to the wives he already had.

10Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran.

11He came to a certain place and stopped there for the night, because the sun had set. He took one of the stones of the place, put it under his head, and lay down to sleep there.

12He had a dream: there was a stairway set up on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were going up and coming down on it.

13And there was Yahweh, standing above it, and he said, “I am Yahweh, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. The land you are lying on I will give to you and to your offspring.

14Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.

15I am with you, and I will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

16Then Jacob woke up from his sleep and said, “Surely Yahweh is in this place, and I did not know it.”

17He was afraid and said, “How awesome this place is! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

18Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had put under his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it.

19He named that place Bethel, though the city had been called Luz before that.

20Then Jacob made a vow: “If God will be with me and watch over me on this journey I am taking, and give me food to eat and clothes to wear,

21so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, then Yahweh will be my God,

22and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of everything you give me I will give you a tenth.”