Prince rapes Dinah
1Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, went into town to visit the ladies there. 2Prince Shechem raped her. He was a son of the town ruler, Hamor the Hivite. [1] 3After Shechem raped her, he decided he loved her. [2] So he spoke tenderly to her, hoping she would fall in love with him.Prince falls in love with raped Dinah
4Shechem told his dad Hamor, “This girl is a keeper. Get her for me. I want to marry her.”5When Jacob got the news that his daughter had been violated, he said nothing about it until his sons came home later that day after taking care of the livestock. 6Shechem’s dad, Hamor, came to talk with Jacob.
7Jacob’s sons were out in the field when they got news of the rape. They rushed home, livid at the disgraceful thing Shechem had done to Jacob’s daughter—something that should never have happened. 8Hamor told Jacob, “My son’s heart belongs to your daughter. He wants to marry her. Please give her to him. 9Let this marriage be just the start of your family’s relationship with the people of our town. Give your daughters to our men as wives. Take our daughters for your men as wives. 10You can stay here. There’s plenty of land. Buy the land you want. Settle on it. Make a living from it."
Prince: "I'm a good person"
11Shechem told Dinah’s father and brothers, “Please think of me as a good person and I will give you whatever you ask. 12I’ll pay whatever bride price you want, no matter how high it is. Just, please, give me this young woman so I can marry her.”13Jacob’s sons lied to Shechem and his father Hamor, since Shechem had raped their little sister Dinah. 14They said, “We can’t let you marry her. You’re not circumcised. It would disgrace our family if she married you. 15There’s only one way we would let you marry her. Your people have to become like family to us. You and all the males in your town have to get circumcised. 16Only then can we let you marry our women. Only then can we marry yours. And only then can we live as one people. 17But if you won’t listen to us and go through with this circumcision, we will take our sister and leave this place.”
18This demand seemed reasonable to Hamor and Shechem. 19Young Shechem didn’t hesitate to do as he was asked. He wanted Jacob’s daughter that much. No one in Hamor’s family, except Hamor himself, carried more authority than Shechem.
20Hamor and his son Shechem went back to the city’s meeting place, the gate into the town. There they addressed a meeting of the town men. They said: 21“These folks are friendly. I say we let them live here and trade with us. There’s enough land for everyone. We should marry their daughters, and let them marry ours. 22There’s just one catch. They’ll stay here and become part of our town only if every male among us will get circumcised—just as their males are circumcised. 23But think of it. Won’t all of their animals and property become ours? All we have to do is consent to this one request and they will agree to live here with us."
24All the men at the meeting did what Hamor and Shechem told them to do. Every male in town got circumcised.
Dinah's brothers go to town to kill freshly circumcised men
25Three days later, when the men were hurting and still walking cockeyed, two of Jacob’s sons went to town. With swords. Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s full brothers, figured there was still some cutting left to do. They killed every man and boy. 26They murdered Hamor and his son Shechem, slitting them with swords. They rescued their sister Dinah. Then they went back to their camp.27Jacob’s other sons went to the city later and found the men dead. They looted the place, since the city, in a sense, had looted their sister. 28Jacob’s sons took flocks, herds, and donkeys, along with crops harvested from the field. 29They took everything worth anything in the city and in the houses. They took the survivors as slaves: women and children.
30Jacob told Simeon and Levi, “You’ve brought me a wagonload of trouble and it might as well be manure because now I stink to high heaven. That’s what everyone in this land will think of me—the Canaanites and the Perizzites. [3] If they unite against me, I don’t have enough men to fight them off. I will die and my family will die with me.” 31In a push back the two brothers answered, “Was it fine and dandy for him to treat our sister like a hooker for hire?”
