A measurement for inclusive 2- and 3-jet events of the azimuthal correlation between the two jets with the largest transverse momenta, Δϕ12, is presented. The measurement considers events where the two leading jets are nearly collinear (“back-to-back”) in the transverse plane and is performed for several ranges of the leading jet transverse momentum. Proton-proton collision data collected with the CMS experiment at a center-of-mass energy of 13TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9fb−1 are used. Predictions based on calculations using matrix elements at leading-order and next-to-leading-order accuracy in perturbative quantum chromodynamics supplemented with leading-log parton showers and hadronization are generally in agreement with the measurements. Discrepancies between the measurement and theoretical predictions are as large as 15%, mainly in the region 177∘<Δϕ12<180∘. The 2- and 3-jet measurements are not simultaneously described by any of models.