Rebecca was told in a dream what her older son Esau had said. So she sent and summoned her younger son Jacob and said to him:

‘Your brother Esau will now try to get revenge against you by killing you.

Now, my son, listen to me. Set out and run away to my brother Laban — to Haran. Stay with him for a few days until your brother’s anger turns away and he stops being angry at you and forgets everything that you have done to him. Then I will send and take you back from there’.

Jacob said: ‘I am not afraid. If he wishes to kill me, I will kill him’.

She said to him: ‘May I not lose my two sons in one day’.

Jacob said to his mother Rebecca: ‘You are indeed aware that my father has grown old, and I notice that he has difficulty seeing. If I left him, it would be a bad thing in his view because I would be leaving him and going away from you. My father would be angry and curse me. I will not go. If he sends me, only then will I go’.

Rebecca said to Jacob: ‘I will go in and tell him. Then he will send you’.

Rebecca went in and said to Isaac: ‘I despise my life because of the two Hittite women whom Esau has married. If Jacob marries one of the women of the land who are like them, why should I remain alive any longer, because the Canaanite women are evil’?

So Isaac summoned his son Jacob, blessed and instructed him, and said to him:

‘Do not marry any of the Canaanite women. Set out and go to Mesopotamia, to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father. From there take a wife from the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.

May the God of Shaddai bless you; may he make you increase, become numerous, and be a throng of nations. May he give the blessings of my father Abraham to you and to your descendants after you so that you may possess the land where you wander as a foreigner — and all the land which the Lord gave to Abraham. Have a safe trip, my son’.

So Isaac sent Jacob away. He went to Mesopotamia, to Laban, the son of Bethuel the Aramean — the brother of Rebecca, Jacob’s mother.

After Jacob had set out to go to Mesopotamia, Rebecca grieved for her son and kept crying.

Isaac said to Rebecca: ‘My sister, do not cry for my son Jacob because he will go safely and return safely.

The most high God will guard him from every evil and will be with him because he will not abandon him throughout his entire lifetime.

For I well know that his ways will be directed favorably wherever he goes until he returns safely to us and we see that he is safe.

Do not be afraid for him, my sister, because he is just in his way. He is perfect; he is a true man. He will not be abandoned. Do not cry’.

So Isaac was consoling Rebecca regarding her son Jacob, and he blessed him.

Jacob left the well of the oath to go to Haran during the first year of the second week of the forty-fourth jubilee [2115]. He arrived at Luz which is on the mountain — that is, Bethel — on the first of the first month of this week. He arrived at the place in the evening, turned off the road to the west of the highway during this night, and slept there because the sun had set.

He took one of the stones of that place and set it [at the place (where) his head (would be)] beneath that tree. He was traveling alone and fell asleep.

That night he dreamed that a ladder was set up on the earth and its top was reaching heaven; that angels of the Lord were going up and down on it; and that the Lord was standing on it.

He spoke with Jacob and said: ‘I am the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you are sleeping I will give to you and your descendants after you.

Your descendants will be like the sands of the earth. You will become numerous toward the west, the east, the north, and the south. All the families of the nations will be blessed through you and your descendants.

As for me, I will be with you. I will guard you wherever you go. I will bring you back safely to this land because I will not abandon you until I have done everything that I have said to you’.

Jacob said in (his) sleep: ‘This place is indeed the house of the Lord but I did not know (it)’. He was afraid and said: ‘This place, which is nothing but the house of the Lord, is awe-inspiring; and this is the gate of heaven’.

Jacob, upon rising early in the morning, took the stone which he had placed at his head and set it up as a pillar for a marker. He poured oil on top of it and named that place Bethel. But at first the name of this area was Luz.

Jacob vowed to the Lord: ‘If the Lord is with me and guards me on this road on which I am traveling and gives me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s house, then the Lord will be my God. Also, this stone which I have set up as a pillar for a marker in this place is to become the house of the Lord. Everything that you have given me I will indeed tithe to you, my God’.