1. God said to Jacob, “Go to the city of Bethel and live there. Make an altar to the God who appeared to you there. This was when you were running away from your brother Esau.”
2. So Jacob said to his family and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods you have. Make yourselves clean, and change your clothes.
3. We will leave here and go to Bethel. There I will build an altar to God. He has helped me during my time of trouble. He has been with me everywhere I have gone.”
4. So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had. And they gave him the earrings they were wearing. He hid them under the great tree near the town of Shechem.
5. Then Jacob and his sons left there. But God caused the people in the nearby cities to be afraid. So they did not follow the sons of Jacob.
6. And Jacob and all the people who were with him went to Luz. It is now called Bethel. It is in the land of Canaan.
7. There Jacob built an altar. He named the place Bethel, after God, because God had appeared to him there. That was when he was running from his brother.
8. Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died and was buried under the oak tree at Bethel. They named that place Oak of Crying.
9. When Jacob came back from Northwest Mesopotamia, God appeared to him again. And God blessed him.