During the first year of the first week in the forty-fifth jubilee [2157], Rebecca summoned her son Jacob and ordered him regarding his father and brother that he was to honor them throughout Jacob’s entire lifetime.

Jacob said: ‘I will do everything just as you ordered me because this matter will be something honorable and great for me; it will be a righteous act for me before the Lord that I should honor them.

You, mother, know everything I have done and all my thoughts from the day I was born until today — that at all times I think of what is good for all.

How shall I not do what you have ordered me — that I should honor my father and brother?

Tell me, mother, what impropriety you have noticed in me and I will certainly turn away from it and will experience mercy’.

She said to him: ‘My son, throughout my entire lifetime I have noticed no improper act in you but only proper one(s). However, I will tell you the truth, my son: I will die during this year and will not make it alive through this year because I have seen the day of my death in a dream — that I will not live more than 155 years. Now I have completed my entire lifetime that I am to live’.

Jacob laughed at what his mother was saying because his mother said to him that she would die, but she was sitting in front of him in possession of her strength. She had lost none of her strength because she could come and go; she could see and her teeth were strong. No sickness had touched her throughout her entire lifetime.

Jacob said to her: ‘Mother, I would be fortunate if my lifetime approached your lifetime and (if) my strength would remain with me in the way your strength has. You are not going to die but rather have jokingly spoken idle nonsense with me about your death’.

She went in to Isaac and said to him: ‘I am making one request of you: make Esau swear that he will not harm Jacob and not pursue him in hatred. For you know the way Esau thinks — that he has been malicious since his youth and that he is devoid of virtue because he wishes to kill him after your death.

You know everything that he has done from the day his brother Jacob went to Haran until today — that he has wholeheartedly abandoned us. He has treated us badly; he has gathered your flocks and has taken all your possessions away from you by force.

When we would ask him in a pleading way for what belonged to us, he would act like someone who was being charitable to us.

He is behaving bitterly toward you due to the fact that you blessed your perfect and true son Jacob since he has virtue only, no evil. From the time he came from Haran until today he has not deprived us of anything but he always brings us everything in its season. He is wholeheartedly happy when we accept (anything) from him, and he blesses us. He has not separated from us from the day he came from Haran until today. He has continually been living with us at home (all the while) honoring us’.

Isaac said to her. ‘I, too, know and see the actions of Jacob who is with us — that he wholeheartedly honors us. At first I did love Esau more than Jacob, after he was born; but now I love Jacob more than Esau because he has done so many bad things and lacks (the ability to do) what is right. For the entire way he acts is (characterized by) injustice and violence and there is no justice about him.

Now my mind is disturbed about his actions. Neither he nor his descendants are to be saved because they will be destroyed from the earth and be uprooted from beneath the sky. For he has abandoned the God of Abraham and has gone after his wives, after impurity, and after their errors — he and his sons.

You are saying to me that I should make him swear not to kill his brother Jacob. Even if he does swear, it will not happen. He will not do what is virtuous but rather what is evil.

If he wishes to kill his brother Jacob, he will be handed over to Jacob and will not escape from his control but will fall into his control.

Now you are not to be afraid for Jacob because Jacob’s guardian is greater and more powerful, glorious, and praiseworthy than Esau’s guardian’.

Then Rebecca sent and summoned Esau. When he had come to her, she said to him: ‘I have a request that I will make of you, my son; say that you will do it, my son’.

He said: ‘I will do anything you tell me; I will not refuse your request’.

She said to him: ‘I ask of you that on the day I die you bring me and bury me near your father’s mother Sarah; and that you and Jacob love one another, and that the one not aim at what is bad for his brother but only at loving one another. Then you will be prosperous, my sons, and be honored on the earth. Your enemy will not be happy over you. You will become a blessing and an object of kindness in the view of all who love you’.

He said: ‘I will do everything that you say to me. I will bury you on the day of your death near my father’s mother Sarah as you have desired that her bones may be near your bones.

My brother Jacob I will love more than all mankind. I have no brother on the entire earth but him alone. This is no great thing for me if I love him because he is my brother. We were conceived together in your belly and we emerged together from your womb. If I do not love my brother, whom shall I love?

I myself ask of you that you instruct Jacob about me and my sons because I know that he will indeed rule over me and my sons. For on the day when my father blessed him he made him the superior and me the inferior one.

I swear to you that I will love him and that throughout my entire lifetime I will not aim at what is bad for him but only at what is good’. He swore to her about this entire matter.

She summoned Jacob in front of Esau and gave him orders in line with what she had discussed with Esau.

He said: ‘I will do what pleases you. Trust me that nothing bad against Esau will come from me or my sons. I will not be first except in love only’.

She and her sons ate and drank that night. She died that night at the age of three jubilees, one week, and one year [= 155 years]. Her two sons Esau and Jacob buried her in the twofold cave near their father’s mother Sarah.