be thy keeper wheresoever thou shalt go, and shall
bring thee again into this land, and I shall not leave till I have
accomplished all that I have said. When Jacob was awaked from his sleep
and dreaming, he said: Verily God is in this place, and I wist not of
it. And he said dreadingly: How terrible is this place, none other thing
is here but the house of God and the gate of heaven. Then Jacob arose
early and took the stone that lay under his head, and raised it for
witness, pouring oil thereon, and called the name of the place Bethel
which tofore was called Luza. And there he made a vow to our Lord,
saying: If God be with me and keep me in the way that I walk, and give
me bread to eat, and clothes to cover me, and I may return prosperously
into the house of my father, the Lord shall be my God, and this stone
that I have raised in witness, this shall be called the house of God.
And the good of all things that thou givest to me, I shall offer to thee
the tithes and tenth part. Then Jacob went forth into the east, and saw
a pit in a field and three flocks of sheep lying by it, for of that pit
were the beasts watered. And the mouth thereof was shut and closed with
a great stone, for the custom was when all the sheep were gathered, they
rolled away the stone, and when they had drunken they laid the stone
again at the pit mouth. And then he said to the shepherds: Brethren,
whence are ye? Which answered: Of Aran. Then he asking them said: Know
ye not Laban, son of Nahor? They said: We know him well. How fareth he,
said he, is he all whole? He fareth well, said they; and lo! Rachel his
daughter cometh there with her flock. Then said Jacob: It is yet far to
even, it is yet time that the flocks be led to drink, and after be
driven to pasture, which answered: We may not so do till all the beasts
be gathered, and then we remove the stone from the mouth of the pit and
water our beasts. And as they talked, Rachel came with the flock of her
father, for she kept that time the beasts. And when Jacob saw her and
knew that she was his erne's [uncle's] daughter, and that they were his
erne's sheep, he removed the stone from the pit's mouth, and when her
sheep had drunken, he kissed her, and weeping he told her that he was
brother to her father and son of Rebekah. Then she hied her and told it
to her father, which when he understood that Jacob, his sister's son,
was come, he ran against him and, embracing, kissed him, and led him
into his h