38 S Genesis 34:8
8 But Hamor said to them, “My son Shechem has his heart set on your
daughter. Please give her to him as his wife. 9 Intermarry with us; give us
your daughters and take our daughters for yourselves. 10 You can settle among
us; the land is open to you. Live in it, trade a in it, and acquire property in it.”
11 Then Shechem said to Dinah’s father and brothers, “Let me find favor in
your eyes, and I will give you whatever you ask. 12 Make the p
rice for the b
ride
and the gift I am to b
ring as g
reat as you like, and I’ll pay whatever you ask
me. Only give me the young woman as my wife.”
13 Because t heir sister Dinah had been defiled, Jacob’s sons replied deceit
fully as they spoke to Shechem and his father Hamor. 14 They said to them, “We
can’t do such a thing; we can’t give our sister to a man who is not circumcised.
That would be a disgrace to us. 15 We will enter into an agreement with you on
one condition only: that you become like us by circumcising all your males.
16 Then we will give you our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves.
We’ll settle among you and become one people with you. 17 But if you will not
agree to be circumcised, we’ll take our sister and go.”
18 Their proposal seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem. 19 The young
man, who was the most honored of all his father’s family, lost no time in doing
what they said, because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter. 20 So Hamor
and his son Shechem went to the gate of t heir city to s peak to the men of t heir
city. 21 “These men are friendly toward us,” they said. “Let them live in our
land and trade in it; the land has plenty of room for them. We can marry their
daughters and they can marry ours. 22 But the men will a
gree to live with us as
one people only on the condition that our m
ales be circumcised, as they them
selves are. 23 Won’t their livestock, their property and all their other animals
become ours? So let us agree to t heir terms, and they will settle among us.”
24 All the men who went out of the city gate a
greed with Hamor and his son
Shechem, and every male in the city was circumcised.
25 Three days later, while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons,
Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and attacked the unsus
pecting city, killing every male. 26 They put Hamor and his son Shechem to
the s word and took Dinah from Shechem’s h
ouse and left. 27 The sons of Jacob
came upon the dead bodies and looted the city where b their sister had been
defiled. 28 They seized their flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else
of t heirs in the city and out in the f ields. 29 They carried off all t heir wealth
and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses.
30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have b
rought trouble on me by
making me obnoxious to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people living in
this land. We are few in number, and if they join forces against me and attack
me, I and my household will be destroyed.”
31 But they replied, “Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?”
Jacob Returns to Bethel
35
Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an
altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from
your brother Esau.”
2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of
the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your
clothes. 3 Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will b
uild an altar to God,
who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wher
ever I have gone.” 4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the
rings in t heir ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. 5 Then
they set out, and the terror of God fell on the towns all around them so that
no one pursued them.
6 Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land
of Canaan. 7 There he built an altar, and he c alled the place El Bethel, c because
it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his
brother.
a 10 Or
move about freely; also in verse 21 b 27 Or because c 7 El Bethel means God
of Bethel.