² So Jacob said to his family and those who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods which you have, wash yourselves until you are ritually clean,^[a] and change your clothes. ³ Then let’s go to Bethel. I will make an altar there to El, who answered me when I was troubled and who has been with me wherever I’ve gone.” ⁴ So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods that they had in their possession as well as the earrings that they had on. Jacob buried these things under the oak tree near Shechem.