- Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him.
- When Jacob saw them, he said, This is the camp of God! So he named that place Mahanaim.
- Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.
- He instructed them: This is what you are to say to my master Esau: 'Your servant Jacob says, I have been staying with Laban and have remained there till now.
- I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, menservants and maidservants. Now I am sending this message to my Lord, that I may find favour in your eyes.'
- When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.
- In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well.
- He thought, If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape.
- Then Jacob prayed, O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, 'Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,'
- I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups.
- Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.
- But you have said, 'I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.'
- He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau:
- two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,
- thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.
- He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, Go ahead of me, and keep some space between the herds.
- He instructed the one in the lead: When my brother Esau meets you and asks, 'To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and who owns all these animals in front of you?'
- then you are to say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my Lord Esau, and he is coming behind us.'
- He also instructed the second, the third and all the others who followed the herds: You are to say the same thing to Esau when you meet him.
- And be sure to say, 'Your servant Jacob is coming behind us.' For he thought, I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead; later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me.
- So Jacob's gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp.
- That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.
- After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.
- So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.
- When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.
- Then the man said, Let me go, for it is daybreak. But Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me.
- The man asked him, What is your name? Jacob, he answered.
- Then the man said, Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.
- Jacob said, Please tell me your name. But he replied, Why do you ask my name? Then he blessed him there.
- So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.
- The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.
- Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon.
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