Chronological
Chapter 32
1 Laban rose early in the morning, kissed his grandsons and daughters, and blessed them. Then he left and returned home.
Jacob Prepares To Meet Esau.[a] 2 As Jacob continued his journey, angels of God appeared to him. 3 When Jacob saw them he said, “This is the encampment of God,” and he called the place Mahanaim. 4 Then Jacob sent some messengers ahead to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. 5 He gave them this command, “Say to my lord Esau, ‘Thus says your servant Jacob, I have sojourned with Laban and I remained there until now. 6 I have come to own oxen, donkeys, flocks, male and female slaves. I am sending my lord this information to seek his favor.’ ”
7 The messengers returned to Jacob saying, “We went to your brother Esau. Now he is coming to meet you and he has four hundred men with him.” 8 Jacob was terribly afraid and filled with anxiety. He divided the men of his camp into two groups along with the flocks, the herds, and the camels. 9 He thought, “If Esau were to come to one group and destroy it, the other would be safe.”
10 Jacob said, “God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, Lord, who told me, ‘Return to your land, to your homeland, and I will bless you,’ 11 I am not worthy of the goodness and faithfulness that you have shown your servant. When I passed over the Jordan I had nothing but my staff, and now I have become so rich that I could establish two camps. 12 Save me from the hands of my brother Esau because I am afraid of him. Let him not come and kill all of us, even the mothers and children. 13 Besides, you said, ‘I will make you prosper and I will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, so numerous that you cannot count them.’ ”
14 Jacob spent the night there. Then he selected the following gifts from among his possessions for his brother Esau: 15 two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 16 thirty nursing camels and their young, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. 17 He entrusted them to his servants, in separate groups, and told them, “Go ahead of me and leave some space between the groups.”
18 He gave this order to the first group, “When you meet Esau, my brother, and he asks you, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? Who owns all these animals that you are driving?’ 19 you are to answer, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift for my lord Esau. And Jacob himself is behind us.’ ”
20 He gave the same order to the second group and the third and all the other groups: “These are the words that you shall say to Esau when you meet him. 21 Tell him, ‘Your servant Jacob is coming behind us.’ ” He was thinking, “The gifts that I am sending will calm him down, and then I will come before him. Maybe he will greet me kindly.” 22 Thus, the gifts went ahead of him, while he spent the night in the camp.
23 A Mysterious Struggle.[b] During the night Jacob arose, took his two wives, his two slaves, and his eleven sons and crossed over the ford of the Jabbok. 24 He took them, crossed over the brook and carried over all his possessions. 25 So Jacob remained alone, and a man wrestled with him until the dawn. 26 Seeing that he could not beat him, the man struck Jacob at the hip joint. Jacob’s hip joint became dislocated while he continued to fight with him. 27 The man said, “Let me go because it is dawn.”
Jacob answered, “I will not let go of you until you will have blessed me.”
28 The man asked, “What is your name?”
He answered, “Jacob.”
29 The man then said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel[c] because you have wrestled with God and with man and have won.”
30 Jacob said to him, “Give me your name.” He answered, “Why are you asking my name?” And then he blessed him. 31 Jacob called the place Peniel[d] because he said, “I have seen God face to face, and I am still alive.”
32 The sun rose and Jacob left Penuel limping. 33 This is why Israelites to this day do not eat the sinew of the thigh, because the man had struck Jacob’s hip joint and the sinew shrank.
Chapter 33
Reconciliation of the Two Brothers.[e] 1 Jacob looked up and saw Esau arrive, accompanied by four hundred men. He therefore divided up his sons among Leah, Rachel, and the two slaves. 2 He had the slaves and their children lead the way, and in back of them Leah and her sons, and then Rachel and Joseph. 3 He walked ahead of them and bowed to the ground seven times as he was approaching his brother.
4 But Esau ran up to him, embraced him, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him and wept. 5 Raising his eyes, he saw the women and the children and said, “To whom do these belong?”
He answered, “They are my sons whom God has graciously given to his servant.”
6 The slaves and their children came forward and bowed down. 7 Then Leah and her children came forward and bowed down. Finally, Rachel and Joseph came forward and bowed down.
8 Esau asked again, “What is all this caravan that I have come across?”
He answered, “So that I might find favor in your sight, my lord.”
9 Esau said, “I have enough of my own possessions, brother; let these things be for you.”
10 But Jacob said, “No, if I have found favor in your sight, accept this gift from my hands. For it is for this that I have come into your presence as one would come into the presence of God, and you have received me favorably. 11 Accept this blessing that I give you, for God has been generous to me and I have enough.” This is the way he insisted, and Esau accepted.
12 Then Esau said, “Let us break camp and set out; I will travel in front of you.”
13 But Jacob answered, “My lord knows that the children are delicate and that my flocks and herds are burdened with young ones. If they were to be pushed even one day, the entire flock would surely die. 14 Let my lord pass on ahead of your servant, while I stay here going slowly, at the pace of the animals that will go ahead of me and at the pace of the children, until I eventually reach my lord in Seir.”
15 Esau said, “I could at least leave a part of my people with you!”
Jacob answered, “But why? Let me only find favor in your sight, my lord!”
16 Thus, that same day, Esau departed for Seir. 17 Jacob instead traveled to Succoth where he built a house for himself and made huts for his flock. This is why he called the place Succoth.
18 When Jacob returned from Paddan-aram, he arrived in peace at the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, and he camped in front of the city. 19 He bought the portion of land where he was camped for one hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father. 20 There he built an altar and called it, El-Elohe-Israel, which means El, the God of Israel.
Chapter 34
The Incident at Shechem.[f] 1 Dinah, the daughter whom Leah had borne for Jacob, went out to see the young women of the country. 2 When Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and laid with her and defiled her. 3 He was deeply attracted to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke comforting words to her. 4 Then he said to Hamor, his father, “Arrange for me to take this woman as a wife.”
5 When Jacob learned that Dinah, his daughter, had been defiled, his sons were in the countryside with the animals. So he remained silent until they returned.
6 Hamor, the father of Shechem, came to Jacob to speak to him. 7 When the sons of Jacob returned from the countryside, they heard what had happened. They were furious and very indignant because he had done this outrage in Israel, sleeping with a daughter of Jacob. One did not do these things!
8 Hamor said to them, “Shechem, my son, is in love with your daughter. Please give her to him in marriage. 9 Why not intermarry with us?[g] You give us your daughters, and you can take our daughters for yourselves. 10 You can live with us, and the land will be at your disposal. Reside here, move about freely, and buy property.”
11 Shechem said to Dinah’s father and her brothers, “Tell me what I can give you in order to find favor in your sight. 12 You can even raise my bridal price greatly and the value of the due gifts. I will give you whatever you ask. Only give me the young woman as my wife.”
13 The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully, for they had dishonored their sister Dinah. 14 They told them, “We cannot do this; we cannot give our sister to a man who is not circumcised. This would dishonor us. 15 We will only grant your request if you become like us, if all of you circumcise your male members. 16 Then we will give you our daughters, and you can give us yours. We will live with you, and we can become a single people. 17 But if you will not listen to our proposal concerning circumcising yourselves, then we will take our daughter and go away.”
18 Their words pleased Hamor and Shechem, the son of Hamor. 19 The young man did not waste any time in doing this thing, for he loved the daughter of Jacob. He was also the most honored member of the household of his father. 20 Hamor and his son Shechem therefore went to the gate of the city and spoke to the men of the city, saying, 21 “These men are peaceful. Let them live with us in the land and move about freely. There is ample space in every direction. We can take their daughters for wives and we can give them ours. 22 But there is one condition before these men will agree to live with us to become a single people: that we circumcise each of our males as they themselves are circumcised. 23 Would not their herds, their riches, and all their animals then be ours? Let us agree to their proposal, and they will then live with us.”
24 All those who were near the gate of the city listened to Hamor and his son Shechem. All the men, everyone who had access to the gate of the city, had themselves circumcised.
25 On the third day, when they were still sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi,[h] the brothers of Dinah, took swords, entered the city boldly, and killed all the men. 26 They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword, took Dinah out of the house of Shechem, and left. 27 The other sons of Jacob came upon the bodies and sacked the city because their sister had been dishonored. 28 They took their flocks and their herds, their donkeys and whatever they had in the city and in the countryside. 29 They carried off all their possessions as booty, sacking whatever was in their houses.
30 Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have placed me in a very difficult situation, making me hateful to the inhabitants of this land, to the Canaanites and the Perizzites, and I only have a few men with me. They will unite against me, and defeat me, and annihilate me and my household.”
31 But they answered, “Should our sister be treated as a harlot?”
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