Genesis32

¹Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

²When Jacob saw them, he said, “This is the camp of God!” So he named that place Mahanaim.

³Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.

⁴He instructed them: “This is what you are to say to my lord Esau: ‘Your servant Jacob says, I have been staying with Laban and have remained there till now.

⁵I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, male and female servants. Now I am sending this message to my lord, that I may find favor in your eyes.’”

⁶When 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.”

⁷In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well.

⁸He thought, “If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape.”

⁹Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, Lord, you who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,’

¹⁰I 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 camps.

¹¹Save 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.

¹²But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’”

¹³He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau:

¹⁴two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,

¹⁵thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.

¹⁶He 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.”

¹⁷He instructed the one in the lead: “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘Who do you belong to, and where are you going, and who owns all these animals in front of you?’

¹⁸then 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.’”

¹⁹He 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.

²⁰And 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.”

²¹So Jacob’s gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp.

²²That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.

²³After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.

²⁴So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.

²⁵When 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.

²⁶Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

²⁷The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered.

²⁸Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

²⁹Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

³⁰So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

³¹The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.

³²Therefore 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.