New Heart English Bible 1Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.
2When he saw them, Jacob said, "This is God's camp." He called the name of that place Mahanaim. 3Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to Esau, his brother, to the land of Seir, the region of Edom. 4He commanded them, saying, "This is what you shall tell my lord, Esau: 'This is what your servant, Jacob, says. I have lived as a foreigner with Laban, and stayed until now. 5I have cattle, donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants. I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favor in your sight.'" 6The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, "We came to your brother Esau. Not only that, but he comes to meet you, and four hundred men with him." 7Then Jacob was very afraid and was distressed. He divided the people who were with him, and the flocks, and the herds, and the camels, into two camps; 8and he said, "If Esau comes to the one camp, and strikes it, then the other camp will escape." 9Jacob said, "God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, who said to me, 'Return to your country, and to your relatives, and I will do you good,' 10I am not worthy of the least of all the loving kindnesses and of all the faithfulness which you have shown to your servant; for with just my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. 11Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear that he will come and attack me and the mothers with the children. 12You said, 'I will surely do you good and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which can�t be counted because there are so many.'" 13So he spent the night there and selected from what he had acquired a present for his brother Esau: 14two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 15thirty milk camels with their young, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. 16He entrusted them into the hands of his servants as separate herds, and said to his servants, "Pass over before me, and keep some distance between the herds." 17He instructed the first, saying, "When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, saying, �Whose are you? Where are you going? Whose are these ahead of you?' 18Then you shall say, 'They are your servant, Jacob�s. It is a present sent to my lord Esau. And look, he also is behind us.'" 19He instructed also the second, and the third, and all that followed the herds, saying, "This is how you are to speak to Esau, when you find him. 20You shall say, 'Not only that, but look, your servant Jacob is behind us.'" For, he said, "I will appease him with the present that goes before me, and afterward I will meet him. Perhaps he will accept me." 21So the gift passed over before him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp. 22He got up that night and took his two wives, and his two female servants, and his eleven sons and crossed over the ford of the Jabbok. 23He took them and sent them across the stream, and sent over all his possessions. 24Then Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the rising of the dawn. 25When he saw that he did not defeat him, he struck the socket of his hip, and Jacob�s hip was dislocated as he wrestled with him. 26Then he said, "Let me go, for the dawn is breaking." Jacob said, "I won't let you go unless you bless me." 27And he said to him, "What is your name?"He said, "Jacob." 28He said, "Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed." 29Then Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask what my name is?" And he blessed him there. 30So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: "For I have seen God face to face, and my life has been preserved." 31The sun rose on him as he passed by Peniel, and he limped because of his hip. 32Therefore, to this day the children of Israel do not eat the tendon of the hip socket, because he struck Jacob�s hip socket near that tendon. |