Genesis 32:1-21

Modern English Version

Jacob Prepares to Meet Esau

32 Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. ² When Jacob saw them, he said, “This is God’s camp.” So he called the name of that place Mahanaim.

³ Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. ⁴ He commanded them, saying, “This is what you must say to my lord Esau: This is what your servant Jacob says, ‘I have sojourned with Laban and stayed there until now. ⁵ I have oxen and donkeys, flocks, and male servants and female servants, and I am sending this message to tell my lord, so that I may find favor in your sight.’ ”

⁶ The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We went to your brother Esau. He is coming to meet you, and what is more, four hundred men are with him.”

⁷ Then Jacob was very afraid and distressed, and he divided the people that were with him, along with the flocks and herds and the camels, into two groups. ⁸ He said, “If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, then the other camp which is left may escape.”

⁹ And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will prosper you,’ ¹⁰ I am not worthy of all the lovingkindness and of all the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant. For with my staff I crossed over this Jordan, and now I have become two encampments. ¹¹ Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau. For I fear him, that he will come and attack me and the mothers with the children. ¹² You said, ‘I will surely prosper you and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which is too many to be counted.’ ”

¹³ So he spent the night there. Then he selected from what he had with him a gift for his brother Esau: ¹⁴ two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, ¹⁵ thirty female camels with their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. ¹⁶ He gave them to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass over before me, and keep a distance between each drove.”

¹⁷ He commanded the one leading, saying, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks you, saying, ‘To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and to whom do these animals belong?’ ¹⁸ then you are to say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he is also behind us.’ ”

¹⁹ Likewise he commanded the second and the third and all that followed the droves, saying, “This is what you are to say to Esau when you find him. ²⁰ Moreover, say, ‘Your servant Jacob is behind us.’ ” For he said, “I will appease him with the gift that goes before me, and then I will see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.” ²¹ So the gift went before him, but he lodged that night in the encampment.