1Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and with him four hundred men. So he divided the children among Leah, and Rachel, and the two maidservants.
2He put the maidservants and their children first, and Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last.
3But he himself passed on ahead of them and bowed to the ground seven times, until he had drawn near to his brother.
4Then Esau ran to meet him and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him; and they wept.
5When he lifted up his eyes and saw the women and the children, he said, “Who are these with you?” And he said, “The children with whom God has graced your servant.”
6Then the maidservants drew near, they and their children, and they bowed down.
7Leah also drew near with her children, and they bowed down; and afterward Joseph and Rachel drew near, and they bowed down.
8Then he said, “What do you mean by all this company that I met?” And he said, “To find favor in the eyes of my lord.”
9But Esau said, “I have plenty, my brother; keep what is yours for yourself.”
10Jacob said, “No, please; if now I have found favor in your eyes, then receive my gift from my hand, for indeed I have seen your face as one sees the face of God, and you have received me favorably.
11Please take my blessing that has been brought to you, because God has been gracious to me and because I have everything.” So he urged him, and he took it.
12Then he said, “Let us set out and go, and let me go alongside you.”
13But he said to him, “My lord knows that the children are frail, and the flocks and herds are nursing and are my responsibility; if they are driven hard for a single day, all the flock will die.
14Let my lord please pass on ahead of his servant, and I will make my way gently, at the pace of the livestock that are before me and at the pace of the children, until I come to my lord at Seir.”
15Then Esau said, “Let me station some of the people who are with me alongside you.” But he said, “Why do this? Let me only find favor in the eyes of my lord.”
16So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.
17But Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built himself a house, and made shelters for his livestock; therefore he called the name of the place Succoth.
18And Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan-aram, and he encamped facing the city.
19And he bought the plot of the field where he had pitched his tent from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred qesitahs.
20And there he set up an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel.
Open in the interactive reader →Where this passage connects across Scripture — each link typed and reasoned, part of the AIT Bible Nexus Chart.