Vayetzei

Leaving Beersheba for Haran, Jacob stops for the night and dreams of a ladder set on the earth with its top reaching heaven, angels ascending and descending, and the LORD standing over it, renewing the promise of land, offspring, and presence. Waking, he sets up his stone pillow as a pillar, names the place Bethel, and vows that the LORD will be his God.

At a well near Haran Jacob meets Rachel and is taken in by her father Laban. He serves seven years for Rachel — "and they seemed to him but a few days" — but on the wedding night Laban substitutes Leah, and Jacob serves another seven years for Rachel. Leah bears Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Rachel, barren, gives her maid Bilhah, who bears Dan and Naphtali; Leah's maid Zilpah bears Gad and Asher; Leah bears Issachar, Zebulun, and a daughter, Dinah. At last God remembers Rachel, and she bears Joseph.

Jacob asks to leave, and stays on for wages of speckled and spotted flocks; through the years his flocks multiply and Laban's sons grow resentful. At God's word Jacob sets out for Canaan secretly with his wives, children, and herds — Rachel, unknown to him, taking her father's household idols. Laban pursues and searches the camp but finds nothing, and the two make a covenant over a heap of stones at Gilead, a boundary neither will cross for harm. Jacob goes on his way, and angels of God meet him.