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Genesis 27

Jacob’s Deception.^*

1When Isaac was so old that his eyesight had failed him, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son!” “Here I am!” he replied.

2Isaac then said, “Now I have grown old. I do not know when I might die.

3So now take your hunting gear—your quiver and bow—and go out into the open country to hunt some game for me.

4Then prepare for me a dish in the way I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you^* before I die.”

5Rebekah had been listening while Isaac was speaking to his son Esau. So when Esau went out into the open country to hunt some game for his father,^a

6Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Listen! I heard your father tell your brother Esau,

7‘Bring me some game and prepare a dish for me to eat, that I may bless you with the LORD’s approval before I die.’

8Now, my son, obey me in what I am about to order you.

9Go to the flock and get me two choice young goats so that with these I might prepare a dish for your father in the way he likes.

10Then bring it to your father to eat, that he may bless you before he dies.”

11But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, “But my brother Esau is a hairy man and I am smooth-skinned!^b

12Suppose my father feels me? He will think I am making fun of him, and I will bring on myself a curse instead of a blessing.”

13His mother, however, replied: “Let any curse against you, my son, fall on me! Just obey me. Go and get me the young goats.”

14So Jacob went and got them and brought them to his mother, and she prepared a dish in the way his father liked.

15Rebekah then took the best clothes of her older son Esau that she had in the house, and gave them to her younger son Jacob to wear;

16and with the goatskins she covered up his hands and the hairless part of his neck.

17Then she gave her son Jacob the dish and the bread she had prepared.

18Going to his father, Jacob said, “Father!” “Yes?” replied Isaac. “Which of my sons are you?”

19Jacob answered his father: “I am Esau, your firstborn. I did as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may bless me.”

20But Isaac said to his son, “How did you get it so quickly, my son?” He answered, “The LORD, your God, directed me.”

21Isaac then said to Jacob, “Come closer, my son, that I may feel you, to learn whether you really are my son Esau or not.”

22So Jacob moved up closer to his father. When Isaac felt him, he said, “Although the voice is Jacob’s, the hands are Esau’s.”

23(He failed to identify him because his hands were hairy, like those of his brother Esau; so he blessed him.)

24Again Isaac said, “Are you really my son Esau?” And Jacob said, “I am.”

25Then Isaac said, “Serve me, my son, and let me eat of the game so that I may bless you.” Jacob served it to him, and Isaac ate; he brought him wine, and he drank.

26Finally his father Isaac said to him, “Come closer, my son, and kiss me.”

27As Jacob went up to kiss him, Isaac smelled the fragrance of his clothes. With that, he blessed him, saying,

“Ah, the fragrance of my son

is like the fragrance of a field

that the LORD has blessed!^c

28May God give to you

of the dew of the heavens

And of the fertility of the earth

abundance of grain and wine.

29^d May peoples serve you,

and nations bow down to you;

Be master of your brothers,

and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.

Cursed be those who curse you,

and blessed be those who bless you.”

30Jacob had scarcely left his father after Isaac had finished blessing him, when his brother Esau came back from his hunt.

31Then he too prepared a dish, and bringing it to his father, he said, “Let my father sit up and eat some of his son’s game, that you may then give me your blessing.”

32His father Isaac asked him, “Who are you?” He said, “I am your son, your firstborn son, Esau.”

33Isaac trembled greatly. “Who was it, then,” he asked, “that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it all just before you came, and I blessed him. Now he is blessed!”

34As he heard his father’s words, Esau burst into loud, bitter sobbing and said, “Father, bless me too!”

35When Isaac said, “Your brother came here by a ruse and carried off your blessing,”

36Esau exclaimed, “He is well named Jacob, is he not! He has supplanted me^* twice! First he took away my right as firstborn, and now he has taken away my blessing.” Then he said, “Have you not saved a blessing for me?”^e

37Isaac replied to Esau: “I have already appointed him your master, and I have assigned to him all his kindred as his servants; besides, I have sustained him with grain and wine. What then can I do for you, my son?”

38But Esau said to his father, “Have you only one blessing, father? Bless me too, father!” and Esau wept aloud.^f

39His father Isaac said in response:

“See, far from the fertile earth

will be your dwelling;

far from the dew of the heavens above!^g

40By your sword you will live,

and your brother you will serve;

But when you become restless,

you will throw off his yoke from your neck.”^h

41Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. Esau said to himself, “Let the time of mourning for my father come, so that I may kill my brother Jacob.”ⁱ

42When Rebekah got news of what her older son Esau had in mind, she summoned her younger son Jacob and said to him: “Listen! Your brother Esau intends to get his revenge by killing you.

43So now, my son, obey me: flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran,

44and stay with him a while until your brother’s fury subsides—

45until your brother’s anger against you subsides and he forgets what you did to him. Then I will send for you and bring you back. Why should I lose both of you in a single day?”

Jacob Sent to Laban.

46Rebekah said to Isaac: “I am disgusted with life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob also should marry a Hittite woman, a native of the land, like these women, why should I live?”^j

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Genesis 28

1^* Isaac therefore summoned Jacob and blessed him, charging him: “You shall not marry a Canaanite woman!^a

2Go now to Paddan-aram, to the home of your mother’s father Bethuel, and there choose a wife for yourself from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.^b

3May God Almighty bless you and make you fertile, multiply you that you may become an assembly of peoples.

4May God extend to you and your descendants the blessing of Abraham, so that you may gain possession of the land where you are residing, which he assigned to Abraham.”^c

5Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way; he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, and brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.^d

6Esau noted that Isaac had blessed Jacob when he sent him to Paddan-aram to get himself a wife there, and that, as he gave him his blessing, he charged him, “You shall not marry a Canaanite woman,”

7and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and gone to Paddan-aram.

8Esau realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac,

9so Esau went to Ishmael, and in addition to the wives he had, married Mahalath, the daughter of Abraham’s son Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth.^e

Jacob’s Dream at Bethel.^*

10Jacob departed from Beer-sheba and proceeded toward Haran.

11When he came upon a certain place,^* he stopped there for the night, since the sun had already set. Taking one of the stones at the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place.

12Then he had a dream: a stairway^* rested on the ground, with its top reaching to the heavens; and God’s angels were going up and down on it.^f

13And there was the LORD standing beside him and saying: I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you are lying I will give to you and your descendants.^g

14Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and through them you will spread to the west and the east, to the north and the south. In you and your descendants all the families of the earth will find blessing.^h

15I am with you and will protect you wherever you go, and bring you back to this land. I will never leave you until I have done what I promised you.ⁱ

16When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he said, “Truly, the LORD is in this place and I did not know it!”

17He was afraid and said: “How awesome this place is! This is nothing else but the house of God, the gateway to heaven!”

18Early the next morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head, set it up as a sacred pillar,^* and poured oil on top of it.^j

19He named that place Bethel,^* whereas the former name of the town had been Luz.^k

20Jacob then made this vow:^* “If God will be with me and protect me on this journey I am making and give me food to eat and clothes to wear,

21and I come back safely to my father’s house, the LORD will be my God.

22This stone that I have set up as a sacred pillar will be the house of God. Of everything you give me, I will return a tenth part to you without fail.”

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Mark 4:34-4135

The Calming of a Storm at Sea.

35^* On that day, as evening drew on, he said to them, “Let us cross to the other side.”^m

36Leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was. And other boats were with him.

37A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up.

38Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

39He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!”^* The wind ceased and there was great calm.

40Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?”

41^{* n} They were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?”

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The complete Book of Genesis

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