Genesis 32

Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. When Jacob saw them, he said, “This is God’s camp.” 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 commanded them, “Say this to my lord Esau: ‘Your servant Jacob says: I have lived as a foreigner with Laban and stayed until now. I have cattle, donkeys, flocks, and male and female servants. I have sent word to my lord so that I may find favor in your eyes.’” The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, with four hundred men.” Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. He divided the people with him, along with the flocks, cattle, and camels, into two camps. He said, “If Esau comes to one camp and attacks it, the remaining camp will escape.” Jacob said, “God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, LORD, who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will do you good,’ I am not worthy of all the acts of kindness and all the faithfulness you have shown your servant. For with my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him, lest he come and strike me down, mothers and children as well. But you said, ‘I will surely do you good and make your offspring like the sand of the sea, too numerous to count.’” He spent that night there and selected from what he had a gift for his brother Esau: two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty nursing camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten young male donkeys. He placed them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, “Go ahead of me and leave space between one herd and the next.” He commanded the first one, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? Whose are these animals ahead of you?’ you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he himself is behind us.’” He also commanded the second, the third, and all who followed the herds, “Say these same words to Esau when you meet him. Also say, ‘Your servant Jacob is behind us.’” For he said, “I will appease him with the gift that goes ahead of me. After that I will see his face; perhaps he will receive me favorably.” So the gift went on ahead of him, while he spent that night in the camp. He rose that night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and he sent across all that he had. Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he could not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was dislocated as he wrestled with him. He said, “Let me go, for day is breaking.” Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.” He said, “Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.” Jacob asked, “Please tell me your name.” He said, “Why do you ask my name?” And he blessed him there. Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, and my life has been preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, and he was limping because of his hip. That is why to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh at the hip socket, because he touched Jacob’s hip socket at that sinew.

Rights and attribution