Genesis 27

¹ Isaac had grown old, and his eyes were so weak that be could no longer see. He summoned his elder son Esau, ‘My son!’ he said to him, and the latter answered, ‘I am here’.

² Then he said, ‘See, I am old and do not know when I may die.

³ Now take your weapons, your quiver and bow; go out into the country and hunt me some game.

⁴ Make me the kind of savoury I like and bring it to me, so that I may eat, and give you my blessing before I die.’

⁵ Rebekah happened to be listening while Isaac was talking to his son Esau. So when Esau went into the country to bunt game for his father,

⁶ Rebekah said to her son Jacob, ‘I have just beard your father saying to your brother Esau,

⁷ “Bring me some game and make a savoury for me. Then I shall eat, and bless you in the presence of Yahweh before I die.”

⁸ Now my son, listen to me and do as I tell you.

⁹ Go to the flock, and bring me back two good kids, so that I can make the kind of savoury your father likes.

¹⁰ Then you can take it to your father for him to eat so that he may bless you before he dies.’

¹¹ Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, ‘Look, my brother Esau is hairy, while I am smooth-skinned.

¹² If my father happens to touch me, he will see I am cheating him, and I shall bring down a curse on myself instead of a blessing.’

¹³ But his mother answered him, ‘On me be the curse, my son! Just listen to me; go and fetch me the kids.’

¹⁴ So he went to fetch them, and he brought them to his mother, and she made the kind of savoury his father liked.

¹⁵ Rebekah took her elder son Esau’s best clothes, which she had in the house, and dressed her younger son Jacob in them,

¹⁶ covering his arms and the smooth part of his neck with the skins of the kids.

¹⁷ Then she handed the savoury and the bread she had made to her son Jacob.

¹⁸ He presented himself before his father and said, ‘Father’. ‘I am here;’ was the reply ‘who are you, my son?’

¹⁹ Jacob said to his father, ‘I am Esau your first-born; I have done as you told me. Please get up and take your place and eat the game I have brought and then give me your blessing.’

²⁰ Isaac said to his son, ‘How quickly you found it, my son!’ ‘It was Yahweh your God’ he answered ‘who put it in my path.’

²¹ Isaac said to Jacob, ‘Come here, then, and let me touch you, my son, to know if you are my son Esau or not’.

²² Jacob came close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, ‘The voice is Jacob’s voice but the arms are the arms of Esau!’

²³ He did not recognise him, for his arms were hairy like his brother Esau’s, and so he blessed him.

²⁴ He said, ‘Are you really my son Esau?’ And he replied, ‘I am’.

²⁵ Isaac said, ‘Bring it here that I may eat the game my son has brought, and so may give you my blessing’. He brought it to him and he ate; he offered him wine, and he drank.

²⁶ His father Isaac said to him, ‘Come closer, and kiss me, my son’.

²⁷ He went closer and kissed his father, who smelled the smell of his clothes. He blessed him saying: ‘Yes, the smell of my son is like the smell of a fertile field blessed by Yahweh.

²⁸ May God give you dew from heaven, and the richness of the earth, abundance of grain and wine!

²⁹ May nations serve you and peoples bow down before you! Be master of your brothers; may the sons of your mother bow down before you! Cursed be he who curses you; blessed be he who blesses you!’

³⁰ As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and just when Jacob was leaving the presence of his father Isaac, his brother Esau returned from hunting.

³¹ He too made a savoury and brought it to his father. He said to him, ‘Father, get up and eat the game your son has brought and then give me your blessing!’

³² His father Isaac asked him, ‘Who are you?’ ‘I am your firstborn son, Esau’ he replied.

³³ At this Isaac was seized with a great trembling and said, ‘Who was it, then, that went hunting and brought me game? Unsuspecting I ate before you came; I blessed him, and blessed he will remain!

³⁴ When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out loudly and bitterly to his father, ‘Father, bless me too!’

³⁵ But he replied, ‘Your brother came by fraud and took your blessing’.

³⁶ Esau said, ‘Is it because his name is Jacob, that he has now supplanted me twice? First he took my birthright, and look, now he has taken my blessing! But’ he added ‘have you not kept a blessing for me?’

³⁷ Isaac answered Esau, ‘See, I have made him your master; I have given him all his brothers as servants, I have provided him with grain and wine. What can I do for you, my son?’

³⁸ Esau said to his father, ‘Was that your only blessing, father? Father, give me a blessing too.’ Isaac remained silent, and Esau burst into tears.

³⁹ Then his father Isaac gave him this answer: ‘Far from the richness of the earth shall be your dwelling-place, far from the dew that falls from heaven.

⁴⁰ You shall live by your sword, and you shall serve your brother. But when you win your freedom, you shall shake his yoke from your neck.'[*a]

⁴¹ Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him, and thought thus to himself, ‘The time to mourn for my father will soon be here. Then I will kill my brother Jacob.’

⁴² When the words of Esau, her elder son, were repeated to Rebekah, she sent for her younger son Jacob and said to him, ‘Look, your brother Esau means to take revenge and kill you.

⁴³ Now, my son, listen to me; go away and take refuge with my brother Laban in Haran.

⁴⁴ Stay with him a while, until your brother’s fury cools,

⁴⁵ until your brother’s anger against you cools and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send someone to bring you back. Why should I lose you both on the same day?’

⁴⁶ Rebekah said to Isaac, ‘I am tired to death because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob marries one of the daughters of Heth like these, one of the women of the country, what meaning is there left in life for me?’