¹ So Isaac summoned Jacob and blessed him; and he gave him this order: 'You are not to marry any of the Canaanite women.

² Go off to Paddan-Aram, the home of Bethuel your mother's father, and there choose a wife for yourself from the daughters of Laban your mother's brother.

³ May El Shaddai bless you; may he make you fruitful and make you multiply so that you become a group of nations.

⁴ May he grant you the blessing of Abraham, you and your descendants after you, so that one day you may own the country where you are now living as a stranger -- which God gave to Abraham.'

⁵ Then Isaac sent Jacob away, and Jacob went to Paddan-Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramaean and brother of Rebekah the mother of Jacob and Esau.

⁶ When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan-Aram to choose a wife there, and that in blessing him he had given him this order: 'You are not to choose a wife from the Canaanite women,'

⁷ and that, in obedience to his father and mother, Jacob had gone to Paddan-Aram,

⁸ Esau then realised how much his father Isaac disapproved of the Canaanite women.

⁹ So Esau went to Ishmael and chose for a wife, in addition to the wives he had, Mahalath daughter of Abraham's son Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth.

¹⁰ Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran.

¹¹ When he had reached a certain place, he stopped there for the night, since the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he made it his pillow and lay down where he was.

¹² He had a dream: there was a ladder, planted on the ground with its top reaching to heaven; and God's angels were going up and down on it.

¹³ And there was Yahweh, standing beside him and saying, 'I, Yahweh, am the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. The ground on which you are lying I shall give to you and your descendants.

¹⁴ Your descendants will be as plentiful as the dust on the ground; you will spread out to west and east, to north and south, and all clans on earth will bless themselves by you and your descendants.

¹⁵ Be sure, I am with you; I shall keep you safe wherever you go, and bring you back to this country, for I shall never desert you until I have done what I have promised you.'

¹⁶ Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, 'Truly, Yahweh is in this place and I did not know!'

¹⁷ He was afraid and said, 'How awe-inspiring this place is! This is nothing less than the abode of God, and this is the gate of heaven!'

¹⁸ Early next morning, Jacob took the stone he had used for his pillow, and set it up as a pillar, pouring oil over the top of it.

¹⁹ He named the place Bethel, but before that the town had been called Luz.

²⁰ Jacob then made this vow, 'If God remains with me and keeps me safe on this journey I am making, if he gives me food to eat and clothes to wear,

²¹ and if I come home safe to my father's home, then Yahweh shall be my God.

²² This stone I have set up as a pillar is to be a house of God, and I shall faithfully pay you a tenth part of everything you give me.'

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The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.

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