1. God said to Jacob, “Go to Bethel at once, and live there. Build an altar there to me, the God who appeared to you when you were running away from your brother Esau.”
2. So Jacob said to his family and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods that you have; purify yourselves and put on clean clothes.
3. We are going to leave here and go to Bethel, where I will build an altar to the God who helped me in the time of my trouble and who has been with me everywhere I have gone.”
4. So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods that they had and also the earrings that they were wearing. He buried them beneath the oak tree near Shechem.
5. When Jacob and his sons started to leave, great fear fell on the people of the nearby towns, and they did not pursue them.
6. Jacob came with all his people to Luz, which is now known as Bethel, in the land of Canaan.