| 章 |
| 32:1 |
Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him.
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| 32:2 |
When Jacob saw them, he said, "This is the camp of God!" So he named that place Mahanaim.
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| 32:3 |
Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.
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| 32:4 |
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.
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| 32:5 |
I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, menservants and maidservants. Now I am sending this message to my lord, that I may find favor in your eyes.' "
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| 32:6 |
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."
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| 32:7 |
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.
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| 32:8 |
He thought, "If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape."
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| 32:9 |
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,
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| 32:10 |
'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.
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| 32:11 |
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.
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| 32:12 |
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.' "
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| 32:13 |
He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau:
|
| 32:14 |
two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,
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| 32:15 |
thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.
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| 32:16 |
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."
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| 32:17 |
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?
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| 32:18 |
'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.' "
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| 32:19 |
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.
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| 32:20 |
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."
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| 32:21 |
So Jacob's gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp.
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| 32:22 |
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.
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| 32:23 |
After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.
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| 32:24 |
So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.
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| 32:25 |
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.
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| 32:26 |
Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
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| 32:27 |
The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered.
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| 32:28 |
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."
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| 32:29 |
Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there.
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| 32:30 |
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."
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| 32:31 |
The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.
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| 32:32 |
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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