1 God said to Jacob: Go up now to Bethel. Settle there and build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.
2 So Jacob told his household and all who were with him: “Get rid of the foreign gods among you; then purify yourselves and change your clothes.
3 Let us now go up to Bethel so that I might build an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.”
4 They gave Jacob all the foreign gods in their possession and also the rings they had in their ears and Jacob buried them under the oak that is near Shechem.
5 Then, as they set out, a great terror fell upon the surrounding towns, so that no one pursued the sons of Jacob.