1. God said to Jacob: Go up now to Bethel. Settle there and build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.
2. So Jacob told his household and all who were with him: “Get rid of the foreign gods among you; then purify yourselves and change your clothes.
3. Let us now go up to Bethel so that I might build an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.”
4. They gave Jacob all the foreign gods in their possession and also the rings they had in their ears and Jacob buried them under the oak that is near Shechem.
5. Then, as they set out, a great terror fell upon the surrounding towns, so that no one pursued the sons of Jacob.
6. Thus Jacob and all the people who were with him arrived in Luz (now Bethel) in the land of Canaan.
7. There he built an altar and called the place El-Bethel, for it was there that God had revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.
8. Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died. She was buried under the oak below Bethel, and so it was named Allon-bacuth.
9. On Jacob’s arrival from Paddan-aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him.