Leave immediately ¹  for Paddan Aram! Go to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and find yourself a wife there, among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.

May he give you and your descendants the blessing he gave to Abraham ¹  so that you may possess the land ²  God gave to Abraham, the land where you have been living as a temporary resident.” ³ 

So Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean and brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.

So Esau went to Ishmael and married ¹  Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Abraham’s son Ishmael, along with the wives he already had.

He reached a certain place ¹  where he decided to camp because the sun had gone down. ²  He took one of the stones ³  and placed it near his head. ⁴  Then he fell asleep ⁵  in that place

and had a dream. ¹  He saw ²  a stairway ³  erected on the earth with its top reaching to the heavens. The angels of God were going up and coming down it

I am with you! ¹  I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you!”

Early ¹  in the morning Jacob ²  took the stone he had placed near his head ³  and set it up as a sacred stone. ⁴  Then he poured oil on top of it.

Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God is with me and protects me on this journey I am taking and gives me food ¹  to eat and clothing to wear,

Then this stone ¹  that I have set up as a sacred stone will be the house of God, and I will surely ²  give you back a tenth of everything you give me.” ³ 

“No longer will your name be Jacob,” the man told him, ¹  “but Israel, ²  because you have fought ³  with God and with men and have prevailed.”

So when the Midianite ¹  merchants passed by, Joseph’s brothers pulled ²  him ³  out of the cistern and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. The Ishmaelites ⁴  then took Joseph to Egypt.

While she was giving birth, one child ¹  put out his hand, and the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.”

He said to his brothers, “My money was returned! Here it is in my sack!” They were dismayed; ¹  they turned trembling one to another ²  and said, “What in the world has God done to us?” ³ 

These ¹  are the twelve tribes of Israel. This is what their father said to them when he blessed them. He gave each of them an appropriate blessing. ² 

Pharaoh said, “I will release you ¹  so that you may sacrifice ²  to the Lord your God in the desert. Only you must not go very far. ³  Do ⁴  pray for me.”

Pharaoh said to him, “Go from me! ¹  Watch out for yourself! Do not appear before me again, ²  for when ³  you see my face you will die!”

The water returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the army of Pharaoh that was coming after the Israelites into the sea ¹  – not so much as one of them survived! ² 

¹ “If an ox ²  gores a man or a woman so that either dies, ³  then the ox must surely ⁴  be stoned and its flesh must not be eaten, but the owner of the ox will be acquitted.

¹ “And you, bring near ²  to you your brother Aaron and his sons with him from among the Israelites, so that they may minister as my priests ³  – Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s sons.