I mourned for them as I would for a friend or my brother. ¹  I bowed down ²  in sorrow as if I were mourning for my mother. ³ 

A person who has friends ¹  may be harmed by them, ²  but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

As for his father, because he practices extortion, robs his brother, and does what is not good among his people, he will die for his iniquity.

I will call for a sword to attack ¹  Gog ²  on all my mountains, declares the sovereign Lord; every man’s sword will be against his brother.

“‘They must not come near a dead person or they will be defiled; ¹  however, for father, mother, son, daughter, brother or sister, they may defile themselves.

They replied, “The man questioned us ¹  thoroughly ²  about ourselves and our family, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ ³  So we answered him in this way. ⁴  How could we possibly know ⁵  that he would say, ⁶  ‘Bring your brother down’?”

But we replied, ‘We cannot go down there. ¹  If our youngest brother is with us, then we will go, ²  for we won’t be permitted to see the man’s face if our youngest brother is not with us.’

If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband’s brother must go to her, marry her, ¹  and perform the duty of a brother-in-law. ² 

A fugitive ¹  came and told Abram the Hebrew. ²  Now Abram was living by the oaks ³  of Mamre the Amorite, the brother ⁴  of Eshcol and Aner. (All these were allied by treaty ⁵  with Abram.) ⁶ 

Did Abraham ¹  not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ²  ‘He is my brother.’ I have done this with a clear conscience ³  and with innocent hands!”

When God made me wander ¹  from my father’s house, I told her, ‘This is what you can do to show your loyalty to me: ²  Every place we go, say about me, “He is my brother.”’”

To Sarah he said, “Look, I have given a thousand pieces of silver ¹  to your ‘brother.’ ²  This is compensation for you so that you will stand vindicated before all who are with you.” ³ 

Before he had finished praying, there came Rebekah ¹  with her water jug on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah (Milcah was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor). ² 

Then I bowed down and worshiped the Lord. I praised the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me on the right path to find the granddaughter ¹  of my master’s brother for his son.

When Rebekah heard what her older son Esau had said, ¹  she quickly summoned ²  her younger son Jacob and told him, “Look, your brother Esau is planning to get revenge by killing you. ³ 

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.

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.

Rescue me, ¹  I pray, from the hand ²  of my brother Esau, ³  for I am afraid he will come ⁴  and attack me, as well as the mothers with their children. ⁵ 

He instructed the servant leading the first herd, ¹  “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘To whom do you belong? ²  Where are you going? Whose herds are you driving?’ ³ 

Then God said to Jacob, “Go up at once ¹  to Bethel ²  and live there. Make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” ³