Jacob Fears Esau

¹Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. ²And when Jacob saw them he said, “This is God's tcamp!” So he called the name of that place uMahanaim.1

³And Jacob sent2 messengers before him to Esau his brother in the land of vSeir, the country of Edom, ⁴instructing them, “Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have sojourned with Laban and stayed until now. ⁵I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants. I have sent to tell my lord, in order that wI may find favor in your sight.’”

⁶And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and xhe is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.” ⁷Then Jacob was ygreatly afraid and distressed. He divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps, ⁸thinking, “If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape.”

⁹And Jacob said, z“O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who asaid to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ ¹⁰bI am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. ¹¹Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for cI fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. ¹²But dyou said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’”

¹³So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took ea present for his brother Esau, ¹⁴two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, ¹⁵thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. ¹⁶These he handed over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove.” ¹⁷He instructed the first, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?’ ¹⁸then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a present sent to my lord Esau. And moreover, he is behind us.’” ¹⁹He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, “You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him, ²⁰and you shall say, ‘Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.’” For he thought, “I may appease him3 with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.”4 ²¹So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.

Jacob Wrestles with God

²²The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children,5 and crossed the ford of the fJabbok. ²³He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. ²⁴And Jacob was left alone. And ga man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. ²⁵When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. ²⁶Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, h“I will not let you go unless you bless me.” ²⁷And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” ²⁸Then he said, i“Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel,6 for jyou have striven with God and kwith men, and have prevailed.” ²⁹Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, l“Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. ³⁰So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel,7 saying, “For mI have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” ³¹The sun rose upon him as he passed nPenuel, limping because of his hip. ³²Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh.

A Man with a Withered Hand

¹cAgain dhe entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. ²And ethey watched Jesus,1 to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. ³And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” ⁴And he said to them, f“Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. ⁵And he glooked around at them with anger, grieved at htheir hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” iHe stretched it out, and his hand was restored. ⁶jThe Pharisees went out and immediately jheld counsel with kthe Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

A Great Crowd Follows Jesus

⁷lJesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and ma great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea ⁸and Jerusalem and nIdumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around oTyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. ⁹And he told his disciples to phave a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they qcrush him, ¹⁰for rhe had healed many, so that all who had sdiseases pressed around him tto touch him. ¹¹uAnd whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they vfell down before him and cried out, “You are wthe Son of God.” ¹²And xhe strictly ordered them not to make him known.

The Twelve Apostles

¹³yAnd he went up on the mountain and called to him those zwhom he desired, and they came to him. ¹⁴yAnd he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach ¹⁵yand have authority to cast out demons. ¹⁶He appointed the twelve: aSimon (to whom bhe gave the name Peter); ¹⁷cJames the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); ¹⁸Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and dMatthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot,2 ¹⁹and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

²⁰Then he went ehome, and the crowd gathered again, fso that they could not even eat. ²¹gAnd when hhis family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He iis out of his mind.”

Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit

²²And jthe scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, k“He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” ²³lAnd he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. ²⁷But mno one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. nThen indeed he may plunder his house.

²⁸o“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, ²⁹but whoever pblasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— ³⁰for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Jesus' Mother and Brothers

³¹qAnd his mother and his rbrothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. ³²And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers3 are outside, seeking you.” ³³And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” ³⁴And slooking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵tFor whoever udoes the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

Esther Saves the Jews

¹On that day King Ahasuerus gave to Queen Esther the house of Haman, hthe enemy of the Jews. And Mordecai came before the king, for Esther had told pwhat he was to her. ²qAnd the king took off his signet ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai. And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman.

³Then Esther spoke again to the king. She fell at his feet and wept and pleaded with him to avert the evil plan of Haman rthe Agagite and the plot that he had devised against the Jews. ⁴sWhen the king held out the golden scepter to Esther, Esther rose and stood before the king. ⁵And she said, “If it please the king, tand if I have found favor in his sight, and if the thing seems right before the king, and I am pleasing in his eyes, let an order be written to revoke uthe letters devised by Haman rthe Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, which he wrote to destroy the Jews who are in all the provinces of the king. ⁶For how can I bear vto see the calamity that is coming to my people? Or how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred?” ⁷Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, “Behold, wI have given Esther the house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows,1 because he intended to lay hands on the Jews. ⁸But you may write as you please with regard to the Jews, in the name of the king, xand seal it with the king's ring, for an edict written in the name of the king and sealed with the king's ring ycannot be revoked.”

⁹zThe king's scribes were summoned at that time, in the third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day. And an edict was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded concerning the Jews, to athe satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces bfrom India to Ethiopia, b127 provinces, cto each province in its own script and to each people in its own language, and also to the Jews in their script and their language. ¹⁰dAnd he wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus eand sealed it with the king's signet ring. Then he sent the letters by mounted couriers riding on fswift horses that were used in the king's service, bred from the royal stud, ¹¹saying that the king allowed the Jews who were in every city gto gather and defend their lives, hto destroy, to kill, and to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them, children and women included, iand to plunder their goods, ¹²jon one day throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar. ¹³kA copy of what was written was to be issued as a decree in every province, being publicly displayed to all peoples, and the Jews were to be ready on that day to take vengeance on their enemies. ¹⁴So the couriers, mounted on their fswift horses that were used in the king's service, rode out hurriedly, urged by the king's command. And the decree was issued in Susa the citadel.

¹⁵Then Mordecai went out from the presence of the king lin royal robes of blue and white, with a great golden crown2 and ma robe of fine linen and purple, nand the city of Susa shouted and rejoiced. ¹⁶The Jews had olight and gladness and joy and honor. ¹⁷And in every province and in every city, wherever the king's command and his edict reached, there was gladness and joy among the Jews, a feast and pa holiday. qAnd many from the peoples of the country declared themselves Jews, rfor fear of the Jews had fallen on them.

God's Righteousness Upheld

¹Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? ²Much in every way. To begin with, xthe Jews were entrusted with ythe oracles of God. ³zWhat if some were unfaithful? aDoes their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? ⁴By no means! bLet God be true though cevery one were a liar, as it is written,

d“That you may be justified in your words,

and prevail when you eare judged.”

⁵But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict fwrath on us? (gI speak in a human way.) ⁶By no means! For then how could hGod judge the world? ⁷But if through my lie God's truth abounds to his glory, iwhy am I still being condemned as a sinner? ⁸And why not jdo evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.

No One Is Righteous

⁹What then? Are we Jews1 any better off?2 No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both kJews and lGreeks, are munder sin, ¹⁰as it is written:

n“None is righteous, no, not one;

¹¹no one understands;

no one seeks for God.

¹²All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;

no one does good,

not even one.”

¹³o“Their throat is pan open grave;

they use their tongues to deceive.”

q“The venom of asps is under their lips.”

¹⁴r“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”

¹⁵s“Their feet are swift to shed blood;

¹⁶in their paths are ruin and misery,

¹⁷and tthe way of peace they have not known.”

¹⁸u“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

¹⁹Now we know that whatever vthe law says it speaks to those who are under the law, wso that every mouth may be stopped, and xthe whole world may be held accountable to God. ²⁰For yby works of the law no human being3 will be justified in his sight, since zthrough the law comes knowledge of sin.

The Righteousness of God Through Faith

²¹But now athe righteousness of God bhas been manifested apart from the law, although cthe Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— ²²the righteousness of God dthrough faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. eFor there is no distinction: ²³for fall have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴gand are justified hby his grace as a gift, ithrough the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵whom God jput forward as ka propitiation lby his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in mhis divine forbearance he had passed over nformer sins. ²⁶It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

²⁷oThen what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. ²⁸For we hold that one is justified by faith papart from works of the law. ²⁹Or qis God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, ³⁰since rGod is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and sthe uncircumcised through faith. ³¹Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.