Taking Decisive Action

When he finally paid off a huge debt to his father-in-law, the patriarch Jacob asked: “When am I to do something also for my own house?” (Genesis 30:30) Like all fathers, Jacob felt the pressure of meeting the material needs of his family, and he worked hard to do this. Says Genesis 30:43: “The man went on increasing more and more, and great flocks and maidservants and menservants and camels and asses came to be his.”

Some years later, however, after Jacob had moved into the land of Canaan, he apparently was unaware that his daughter Dinah had developed the dangerous habit of associating with the pagan Canaanites.a (Genesis 34:1) He also failed to act when he became aware of the presence of heathen paraphernalia in his household. At any rate, after the tragic rape of Dinah by a Canaanite, Jacob took decisive action. “Put away the foreign gods that are in the midst of you and cleanse yourselves,” he directed.​—Genesis 35:2-4.