3Jacob sent messengers on ahead to his brother Esau to the district of Seir in the Edomite country, 4and 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. 5I 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.' 6The messengers returned to Jacob and said, 'We met your brother Esau already on the way to meet you with four hundred men.' 7Jacob, much afraid and distressed, divided the people with him, as well as the sheep, cattle, and camels, into two companies, 8thinking that, if Esau should come upon one company and destroy it, the other company would survive. 9Jacob 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, 10I 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. 11Save me, I pray, from my brother Esau, for I am afraid that he may come and destroy me, sparing neither mother nor child. 12But thou didst say, I will prosper you and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which is beyond all counting.'
13Jacob spent that night there; and as a present for his brother Esau he chose from the herds he had with him 14two hundred she-goats, twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 15thirty milch-camels with their young, forty cows and ten young bulls, twenty she-asses and ten he-asses. 16He 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.' 17Then 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, 18you are to say, "They belong to your servant Jacob; he sends them as a present to my lord Esau, and he is behind us." ' 19He 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. 20And 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.' 21So Jacob's present went on ahead of him, but he himself spent that night at Mahaneh.
22During the night Jacob rose, took his two wives, his two slave-girls, and his eleven sons, and crossed the ford of Jabbok. 23He took them and sent them across the gorge with all that he had. 24So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him there till daybreak. 25When 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. 26The 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.' 28The man said, 'Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel , because you strove with God and with men, and prevailed.' 29Jacob said, 'Tell me, I pray, your name.' He replied, 'Why do you ask my name?', but he gave him his blessing there. 30Jacob called the place Peniel , 'because', he said, 'I have seen God face to face and my life is spared.' 31The sun rose as Jacob passed through Penuel, limping because of his hip. 32This 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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