GOD OF THE HOUSE

GENESIS 33
1 Then Jacob lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids.
2 He put the maids and their children in front, and Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last.
3 But he himself passed on ahead of them and bowed down to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother.
4 Then Esau ran to meet him and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. 5 He lifted his eyes and saw the women and the children, and said, “Who are these with you?” So he said, “The children whom God has graciously given your servant.”
6 Then the maids came near with their children, and they bowed down.
7 Leah likewise came near with her children, and they bowed down; and afterward Joseph came near with Rachel, and they bowed down.
8 And he said, “What do you mean by all this company which I have met?” And he said, “To find favor in the sight of my lord.”
9 But Esau said, “I have plenty, my brother; let what you have be your own.”
10 Jacob said, “No, please, if now I have found favor in your sight, then take my present from my hand, for I see your face as one sees the face of God, and you have received me favorably.
11 “Please take my gift which has been brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me and because I have plenty.” Thus he urged him and he took it.
12 Then Esau said, “Let us take our journey and go, and I will go before you.”
13 But he said to him, “My lord knows that the children are frail and that the flocks and herds which are nursing are a care to me. And if they are driven hard one day, all the flocks will die.
14 “Please let my lord pass on before his servant, and I will proceed at my leisure, according to the pace of the cattle that are before me and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my lord at Seir.”
15 Esau said, “Please let me leave with you some of the people who are with me.” But he said, “What need is there? Let me find favor in the sight of my lord.”
16 So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.
17 Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built for himself a house and made booths for his livestock; therefore the place is named Succoth.
18 Now Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan-aram, and camped before the city.
19 He bought the piece of land where he had pitched his tent from the hand of the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for one hundred pieces of money.
20 Then he erected there an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel.

MATTHEW 5:23-24
23 “Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,
24 leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.

1 JOHN 4:20-21
20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

GENESIS 34
1 Now Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the daughters of the land.
2 When Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he took her and lay with her by force.
3 He was deeply attracted to Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the girl and spoke tenderly to her.
4 So Shechem spoke to his father Hamor, saying, “Get me this young girl for a wife.”
5 Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter; but his sons were with his livestock in the field, so Jacob kept silent until they came in. 6 Then Hamor the father of Shechem went out to Jacob to speak with him.
7 Now the sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard it; and the men were grieved, and they were very angry because he had done a disgraceful thing in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, for such a thing ought not to be done.
8 But Hamor spoke with them, saying, “The soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter; please give her to him in marriage.
9 “Intermarry with us; give your daughters to us and take our daughters for yourselves.
10 “Thus you shall live with us, and the land shall be open before you; live and trade in it and acquire property in it.”
11 Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, “If I find favor in your sight, then I will give whatever you say to me.
12 “Ask me ever so much bridal payment and gift, and I will give according as you say to me; but give me the girl in marriage.”
13 But Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor with deceit, because he had defiled Dinah their sister.
14 They said to them, “We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised, for that would be a disgrace to us.
15 “Only on this condition will we consent to you: if you will become like us, in that every male of you be circumcised,
16 then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters for ourselves, and we will live with you and become one people.
17 “But if you will not listen to us to be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and go.”
18 Now their words seemed reasonable to Hamor and Shechem, Hamor’s son.
19 The young man did not delay to do the thing, because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter. Now he was more respected than all the household of his father.
20 So Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, saying,
21 “These men are friendly with us; therefore let them live in the land and trade in it, for behold, the land is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters in marriage, and give our daughters to them.
22 “Only on this condition will the men consent to us to live with us, to become one people: that every male among us be circumcised as they are circumcised.
23 “Will not their livestock and their property and all their animals be ours? Only let us consent to them, and they will live with us.”
24 All who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor and to his son Shechem, and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city.
25 Now it came about on the third day, when they were in pain, that two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and came upon the city unawares, and killed every male.
26 They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah from Shechem’s house, and went forth.
27 Jacob’s sons came upon the slain and looted the city, because they had defiled their sister.
28 They took their flocks and their herds and their donkeys, and that which was in the city and that which was in the field;
29 and they captured and looted all their wealth and all their little ones and their wives, even all that was in the houses.
30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me odious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and my men being few in number, they will gather together against me and attack me and I will be destroyed, I and my household.”
31 But they said, “Should he treat our sister as a harlot?”

GENESIS 35:2-4
2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods
which are among you, and purify yourselves and change your garments;
3 and let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.”
4 So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods which they had and the rings which were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak which was near Shechem.

PSALMS 32:1-7
1 A Psalm of David. A Maskil. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered!
2 How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!
3 When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away Through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer.Selah.
5 I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”; And You forgave the guilt of my sin.Selah.
6 Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be found; Surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him.
7 You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance.Selah.

GENESIS 35:7
7 He built an altar there, and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed Himself to him when he fled from his brother.

GENESIS 35:16-29
16 Then they journeyed from Bethel; and when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and she suffered severe labor.
17 When she was in severe labor the midwife said to her, “Do not fear, for now you have another son.”
18 It came about as her soul was departing (for she died), that she named him Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin.
19 So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).
20 Jacob set up a pillar over her grave; that is the pillar of Rachel’s grave to this day.
21 Then Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder.
22 It came about while Israel was dwelling in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine, and Israel heard of it. Now there were twelve sons of Jacob—
23 the sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, then Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Zebulun;
24 the sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin;
25 and the sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s maid: Dan and Naphtali;
26 and the sons of Zilpah, Leah’s maid: Gad and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram.
27 Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre of Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned.
28 Now the days of Isaac were one hundred and eighty years.
29 Isaac breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, an old man of ripe age; and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

GENESIS 37:1-11
1 Now Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan.
2 These are the records of the generations of Jacob. Joseph, when seventeen years of age, was pasturing the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a varicolored tunic.
4 His brothers saw that their father loved him
more than all his brothers; and so they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms.
5 Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.
6 He said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I have had;
7 for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.”
8 Then his brothers said to him, “Are you actually going to reign over us? Or are you really going to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.
9 Now he had still another dream, and related it to his brothers, and said, “Lo, I have had still another dream; and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”
10 He related it to his father and to his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have had? Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground?”
11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.