Genesis 32:1-21 ▼

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

2 When he saw them, Jacob said, |This is God's camp.| He called the name of that place Mahanaim.

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

4 He 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.

5 I have cattle, donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants. I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favor in your sight.'|

6 The 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.|

7 Then 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;

8 and he said, |If Esau comes to the one camp, and strikes it, then the other camp will escape.|

9 Jacob 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,'

10 I 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.

11 Please 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.

12 You 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.'|

13 So he spent the night there and selected from what he had acquired a present for his brother Esau:

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

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

16 He 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.|

17 He 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?'

18 Then 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.'|

19 He 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.

20 You 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.|

21 So the gift passed over before him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.