¹ And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and with him four hundred men. And he distributed the children to Leah, and to Rachel, and to the two maidservants:

² and he put the maidservants and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindmost.

³ And he passed on before them, and bowed to the earth seven times, until he came near to his brother.

⁴ And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him; and they wept.

⁵ And he lifted up his eyes and saw the women and the children, and said, Who are these with thee? And he said, The children that God has graciously given thy servant.

⁶ And the maidservants drew near, they and their children, and they bowed.

⁷ And Leah also, with her children, drew near, and they bowed. And lastly Joseph drew near, and Rachel, and they bowed.

⁸ And he said, What [meanest] thou by all the drove which I met? And he said, To find favour in the eyes of my lord.

⁹ And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; let what thou hast be thine.

¹⁰ And Jacob said, No, I pray thee; if now I have found favour in thine eyes, then receive my gift from my hand; for therefore have I seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou hast received me with pleasure.

¹¹ Take, I pray thee, my blessing which has been brought to thee; because God has been gracious to me, and because I have everything. And he urged him, and he took [it].

¹² And he said, Let us take our journey, and go on, and I will go before thee.

¹³ And he said to him, My lord knows that the children are tender, and the suckling sheep and kine are with me; and if they should overdrive them only one day, all the flock would die.

¹⁴ Let my lord, I pray thee, pass on before his servant, and I will drive on at my ease according to the pace of the cattle that is before me, and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my lord, to Seir.

¹⁵ And Esau said, Let me now leave with thee [some] of the people that are with me. And he said, What need? Let me find favour in the eyes of my lord.

¹⁶ And Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.

¹⁷ And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built himself a house, and for his cattle he made booths. Therefore the name of the place was called Succoth.

¹⁸ And Jacob came safely [to the] city Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padan-Aram; and he encamped before the city.

¹⁹ And he bought the portion of the field where he had spread his tent, of the hand of the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, for a hundred kesitahs.

²⁰ And there he set up an altar, and called it El-Elohe-Israel.

¹³ and he spoke to Ephron, in the ears of the people of the land, saying, But if only thou wouldst listen to me, I give the money for the field: take [it] of me, and I will bury my dead there.

¹ There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar.

² Yahweh appeared to him, and said, "Don't go down into Egypt. Live in the land I will tell you about.

³ Live in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you. For to you, and to your seed, I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to Abraham your father.

⁴ I will multiply your seed as the stars of the sky, and will give to your seed all these lands. In your seed will all the nations of the earth be blessed,

⁵ because Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my requirements, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws."

⁶ Isaac lived in Gerar.

⁷ The men of the place asked him about his wife. He said, "She is my sister," for he was afraid to say, "My wife," lest, he thought, "the men of the place might kill me for Rebekah, because she is beautiful to look at."

⁸ It happened, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was caressing Rebekah, his wife.

⁹ Abimelech called Isaac, and said, "Behold, surely she is your wife. Why did you say, 'She is my sister?'" Isaac said to him, "Because I said, 'Lest I die because of her.'"

¹⁰ Abimelech said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us!"

¹¹ Abimelech commanded all the people, saying, "He who touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death."

¹² Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year one hundred times what he planted. Yahweh blessed him.

¹³ The man grew great, and grew more and more until he became very great.

¹⁴ He had possessions of flocks, possessions of herds, and a great household. The Philistines envied him.

¹⁵ Now all the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped, and filled with earth.

¹⁶ Abimelech said to Isaac, "Go from us, for you are much mightier than we."

¹⁷ Isaac departed from there, encamped in the valley of Gerar, and lived there.

¹⁸ Isaac dug again the wells of water, which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father. For the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham. He called their names after the names by which his father had called them.

¹⁹ Isaac's servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of springing water.

²⁰ The herdsmen of Gerar argued with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, "The water is ours." He called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him.

²¹ They dug another well, and they argued over that, also. He called its name Sitnah.

²² He left that place, and dug another well. They didn't argue over that one. He called it Rehoboth. He said, "For now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land."

²³ He went up from there to Beersheba.

²⁴ Yahweh appeared to him the same night, and said, "I am the God of Abraham your father. Don't be afraid, for I am with you, and will bless you, and multiply your seed for my servant Abraham's sake."

²⁵ He built an altar there, and called on the name of Yahweh, and pitched his tent there. There Isaac's servants dug a well.

²⁶ Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath his friend, and Phicol the captain of his army.

²⁷ Isaac said to them, "Why have you come to me, since you hate me, and have sent me away from you?"

²⁸ They said, "We saw plainly that Yahweh was with you. We said, 'Let there now be an oath between us, even between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you,

²⁹ that you will do us no harm, as we have not touched you, and as we have done to you nothing but good, and have sent you away in peace.' You are now the blessed of Yahweh."

³⁰ He made them a feast, and they ate and drank.

³¹ They rose up some time in the morning, and swore one to another. Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.

³² It happened the same day, that Isaac's servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had dug, and said to him, "We have found water."

³³ He called it Shibah. Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.

³⁴ When Esau was forty years old, he took as wife Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite.

³⁵ They grieved Isaac's and Rebekah's spirits.