| 32 | Genesis | ||
| 1 | Then Jacob continued his journey and was met by angels of God. | JACOB prepares to meet Esau. Gn.32.1-21 | |
| 2 | When he saw them, Jacob said, 'This is the company of God', and he called that place Mahanaim . | ||
| 3 | Jacob sent messengers on ahead to his brother Esau to the district of Seir in the Edomite country, | ||
| 4 | and this is what he told them to say to Esau, 'My lord, your servant Jacob says, I have been living with Laban and have stayed there till now. | ||
| 5 | I have oxen, asses, and sheep, and male and female slaves, and I have sent to tell you this, my lord, so that I may win your favour.' | ||
| 6 | The messengers returned to Jacob and said, 'We met your brother Esau already on the way to meet you with four hundred men.' | ||
| 7 | Jacob, much afraid and distressed, divided the people with him, as well as the sheep, cattle, and camels, into two companies, | ||
| 8 | thinking that, if Esau should come upon one company and destroy it, the other company would survive. | ||
| 9 | Jacob said, 'O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O LORD at whose bidding I came back to my own country and to my kindred, and who didst promise me prosperity, | ||
| 10 | I am not worthy of all the true and steadfast love which thou hast shown to me thy servant. When I crossed the Jordan, I had nothing but the staff in my hand; now I have two companies. | ||
| 11 | Save me, I pray, from my brother Esau, for I am afraid that he may come and destroy me, sparing neither mother nor child. | ||
| 12 | But thou didst say, I will prosper you and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which is beyond all counting.' | ||
| 13 | Jacob spent that night there; and as a present for his brother Esau he chose from the herds he had with him | ||
| 14 | two hundred she-goats, twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, | ||
| 15 | thirty milch-camels with their young, forty cows and ten young bulls, twenty she-asses and ten he-asses. | ||
| 16 | He put each herd separately into the care of a servant and said to each, 'Go on ahead of me, and leave gaps between the herds.' | ||
| 17 | Then he gave these instructions to the first: 'When my brother Esau meets you and asks you to whom you belong and where you are going and who owns these beasts you are driving, | ||
| 18 | you are to say, "They belong to your servant Jacob; he sends them as a present to my lord Esau, and he is behind us." ' | ||
| 19 | He gave the same instructions to the second, to the third, and all the drovers, telling them to say the same thing to Esau when they met him. | ||
| 20 | And they were to add, 'Your servant Jacob is behind us' ; for he thought, 'I will appease him with the present that I have sent on ahead, and afterwards, when I come into his presence, he will perhaps receive me kindly.' | ||
| 21 | So Jacob's present went on ahead of him, but he himself spent that night at Mahaneh. | ||
| 22 | During the night Jacob rose, took his two wives, his two slave-girls, and his eleven sons, and crossed the ford of Jabbok. | Peniel - Jacob is named Israel Gn.32.22-32 | |
| 23 | He took them and sent them across the gorge with all that he had. | ||
| 24 | So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him there till daybreak. | ||
| 25 | When the man saw that he could not throw Jacob, he struck him in the hollow of his thigh, so that Jacob's hip was dislocated as they wrestled. | ||
| 26 | The man said, 'Let me go, for day is breaking', but Jacob replied, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.' | ||
| 27 | He said to Jacob, 'What is your name ?', and he answered, 'Jacob.' | ||
| 28 | The man said, 'Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel , because you strove with God and with men, and prevailed.' | ||
| 29 | Jacob said, 'Tell me, I pray, your name.' He replied, 'Why do you ask my name?', but he gave him his blessing there. | ||
| 30 | Jacob called the place Peniel , 'because', he said, 'I have seen God face to face and my life is spared.' | ||
| 31 | The sun rose as Jacob passed through Penuel, limping because of his hip. | ||
| 32 | This is why the Israelites to this day do not eat the sinew of the nerve that runs in the hollow of the thigh; for the man had struck Jacob on that nerve in the hollow of the thigh. | ||
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