Genesis 35:3-5

 Here are these verses from The New American Bible: "We are now to go up to Bethel, and I will build an altar thereto the God that answered me in my hour of distress and who has gone with me wherever I have gone. They therefore handed over to Jacob all the foreign gods in their possession and also the rings they had in their ears. Then, as they set out, a terror from God fell upon the towns all about, so that no one pursued the sons of Jacob."

What heartens me about Yahweh's allegiance with and unswerving loyalty to Jacob was that though, Jacob was God's chosen representative on earth, and the direct, descendant of Abraham, Jacob was a sneaky, treacherous, vacillating, weak man, like so many of we sinners are. God sent his angel to wrestle with Jacob, to wake him up, to quit fighting against God, and to swing his stubbornness to working for God. God never gave up on this troubled man, until Jacob finally woke up, and swung his support and loyalty towards God. That is love, mercy, forgiving and never abandoning one of your human children, and that is most heartwarming.

Now that Jacob has woke up and is devoted to Yahweh, Yahweh gives him a home and protection against a vast, hostile host of surrounding pagans that hate Jacob and would rise up, organize and wipe them out, if they could. But Yahweh's angel set a terror from God upon all of Jacob's enemies, and they were prostrate with fright, and unwilling to look up, let alone attack God's representative on earth.

 Just, think what the Mother and Father could do for us today, if we but believed as deeply as Jacob had learned to adopt, Our enemies would scatter in front of us.

Here are these verses from the Holy Bible (KJV): "And let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under an oak which was by Shechem. And the journeyed: and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob."