Chapter 35

  In the meantime God said to Jacob: Arise, and go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar to God, who appeared to thee when thou didst flee from Esau thy brother.  

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  And Jacob having called together all his household, said: Cast away the strange gods that are among you, and be cleansed and change your garments.  

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  Arise, and let us go up to Bethel, that we may make there an altar to God: who heard me in the day of my affliction, and accompanied me in my journey.  

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  So they gave him all the strange gods they had, and the earrings which were in their ears: and he buried them under the turpentine tree, that is behind the city of Sichem.  

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  And when they were departed, the terror of God fell upon all the cities round about, and they durst not pursue after them as they went away.  

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  And Jacob came to Luza, which is in the land of Chanaan, surnamed Bethel: he and all the people that were with him.  

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  And he built there an altar, and called the name of that place, The house of God: for there God appeared to him when he fled from his brother.  

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  At the same time Debora the nurse of Rebecca died, and was buried at the foot of Bethel under an oak: and the name of that place was called, The oak of weeping.  

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  And God appeared again to Jacob, after he returned from Mesopotamia of Syria, and he blessed him,  

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  Saying: Thou shalt not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. And he called him Israel.  

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  And said to him: I am God Almighty, increase thou and be multiplied. Nations and peoples of nations shall be from thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins.  

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  And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to thee, and to thy seed after thee.  

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  And he departed from him.  

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  But he set up a monument of stone, in the place where God had spoken to him: pouring drink offerings upon it, and pouring oil thereon:  

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  And calling the name of that place Bethel.  

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  And going forth from thence, he came in the springtime to the land which leadeth to Ephrata: wherein when Rachel was in travail,  

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  By reason of her hard labor she began to be in danger, and the midwife said to her: Fear not, for thou shalt have this son also.  

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  And when her soul was departing for pain, and death was now at hand, she called the name of her son Benoni, that is, The son of my pain: but his father called him Benjamin, that is, The son of the right hand.  

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  So Rachel died, and was buried in the highway that leadeth to Ephrata, that is Bethlehem.  

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  And Jacob erected a pillar over her sepulcher: this is the pillar of Rachel's monument, to this day.  

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  Departing thence, he pitched his tent beyond the Flock tower.  

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  And when he dwelt in that country, Ruben went, and slept with Bala, the concubine of his father: which he was not ignorant of. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve.  

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  The sons of Lia: Ruben the firstborn, and Simeon, and Levi, and Juda, and Issachar, and Zebulon.  

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  The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.  

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  The sons of Bala, Rachel's handmaid: Dan and Naphthali.  

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  The sons of Zelpha, Lia's handmaid: Gad and Aser: these are the sons of Jacob, that were born to him in Mesopotamia of Syria.  

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  And he came to Isaac his father in Mambre, the city of Arbee, this is Hebron: Wherein Abraham and Isaac sojourned.  

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  And the days of Isaac were a hundred and eighty years.  

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  And being spent with age he died, and was gathered to his people, being old and full of days: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.  

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