The Daily Audio Bible

¹³ Jacob stayed in that place for the night. He prepared some things to give to Esau as a gift. ¹⁴ He took 200 female goats and 20 male goats, 200 female sheep and 20 male sheep. ¹⁵ He took 30 camels and their colts, 40 cows and 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys and 10 male donkeys. ¹⁶ He gave each flock of animals to his servants. Then he said to them, “Separate each group of animals. Go ahead of me and keep some space between each herd.” ¹⁷ Jacob gave them their orders. To the servant with the first group of animals he said, “When Esau my brother comes to you and asks you, ‘Whose animals are these? Where are you going? Whose servant are you?’ ¹⁸ then you should answer, ‘These animals belong to your servant Jacob. He sent them as a gift to you, my master Esau. And he also is coming behind us.’”

¹⁹ Jacob also ordered the second servant, the third servant, and all the other servants to do the same thing. He said, “You will say the same thing to Esau when you meet him. ²⁰ You will say, ‘This is a gift to you, and your servant Jacob is behind us.’”

Jacob thought, “If I send these men ahead with gifts, maybe Esau will forgive me and accept me.” ²¹ So Jacob sent the gifts to Esau, but he stayed that night in the camp.

²² During the night, Jacob got up and began moving his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven sons across the Jabbok River at the crossing. ²³ After he sent his family across the river, he sent across everything he had.

The Fight With God

²⁴ Jacob was left alone, and a man came and wrestled with him. The man fought with him until the sun came up. ²⁵ When the man saw that he could not defeat Jacob, he touched Jacob’s leg and put it out of joint.

²⁶ Then the man said to Jacob, “Let me go. The sun is coming up.”

But Jacob said, “I will not let you go. You must bless me.”

²⁷ And the man said to him, “What is your name?”

And Jacob said, “My name is Jacob.”

²⁸ Then the man said, “Your name will not be Jacob. Your name will now be Israel.^[a] I give you this name because you have fought with God and with men, and you have won.”

²⁹ Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.”

But the man said, “Why do you ask my name?” Then the man blessed Jacob at that place.

³⁰ So Jacob named that place Peniel.^[b] He said, “At this place, I saw God face to face, but my life was spared.” ³¹ Then the sun came up as Jacob left Peniel. He was limping because of his leg. ³² So even today, the people of Israel don’t eat the muscle that is on the hip joint, because this is the muscle where Jacob was hurt.

Jacob Meets Esau

33 Jacob looked and saw Esau coming with 400 men. Jacob divided his family into four groups. Leah and her children were in one group, Rachel and Joseph were in one group, and the two maids and their children were in two groups. ² Jacob put the maids with their children first. Then he put Leah and her children behind them, and he put Rachel and Joseph in the last place.

³ Jacob himself went out before them. While he was walking toward his brother Esau, he bowed down to the ground seven times.

⁴ When Esau saw Jacob, he ran to meet him. He put his arms around Jacob, hugged his neck, and kissed him. Then they both cried. ⁵ Esau looked up and saw the women and children. He said, “Who are all these people with you?”

Jacob answered, “These are the children that God gave me. God has been good to me.”

⁶ Then the two maids and the children with them went to Esau. They bowed down before him. ⁷ Then Leah and the children with her went to Esau and bowed down. And then Rachel and Joseph went to him and bowed down.

⁸ Esau said, “Who were all those people I saw while I was coming here? And what were all those animals for?”

Jacob answered, “These are my gifts to you so that you might accept me.”

⁹ But Esau said, “You don’t have to give me gifts, brother. I have enough for myself.”

¹⁰ Jacob said, “No, I beg you! If you really accept me, please accept the gifts I give you. I am very happy to see your face again. It is like seeing the face of God. I am very happy to see that you accept me. ¹¹ So I beg you to also accept the gifts I give you. God has been very good to me. I have more than I need.” Because Jacob begged Esau to take the gifts, he accepted them.

¹² Then Esau said, “Now you can continue your journey. I will go with you.”

¹³ But Jacob said to him, “You know that my children are weak. And I must be careful with my flocks and their young animals. If I force them to walk too far in one day, all the animals will die. ¹⁴ So you go on ahead. I will follow you slowly. I will go slowly enough for the cattle and other animals to be safe and so that my children will not get too tired. I will meet you in Seir.”

¹⁵ So Esau said, “Then I will leave some of my men to help you.”

But Jacob said, “That is very kind of you, but there is no need to do that.” ¹⁶ So that day Esau started on his trip back to Seir. ¹⁷ But Jacob went to Succoth.^[c] There he built a house for himself and small barns for his cattle. That is why the place was named Succoth.

¹⁸ Jacob safely ended his trip from Paddan Aram when he came to the town of Shechem in Canaan. He made his camp in a field near the city. ¹⁹ He bought the field where he camped from the family of Hamor, father of Shechem. He paid 100 pieces of silver for it. ²⁰ He built an altar there to honor God. He named the place “El,^[d] the God of Israel.”

The Rape of Dinah

34 One day, Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, went out to see the women of that place. ² She was seen by Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, who ruled that area. Shechem took Dinah and raped her. ³ But he was so attracted to her that he fell in love and began expressing his feelings to her. ⁴ He told his father, “Please get this girl for me so that I can marry her.”

⁵ Jacob learned that Shechem had done this very bad thing to his daughter. But all his sons were out in the fields with the cattle. So he did nothing until they came home. ⁶ Then Shechem’s father, Hamor, came out to talk with Jacob.

⁷ In the fields Jacob’s sons heard the news about what had happened. They were very angry because Shechem had brought shame to Israel by raping Jacob’s daughter. They came in from the fields as soon as they heard about the terrible thing Shechem had done.

⁸ But Hamor talked to Dinah’s brothers and said, “My son Shechem wants Dinah very much. Please let him marry her. ⁹ This marriage will show we have a special agreement. Then our men can marry your women, and your men can marry our women. ¹⁰ You can live in the same land with us. You will be free to own the land and to trade here.”

¹¹ Shechem also talked to Jacob and to Dinah’s brothers and said, “Please accept me. I will do anything you ask me to do. ¹² I will give you any gift^[e] you want if you will only allow me to marry Dinah. I will give you anything you ask, but let me marry her.”

¹³ Jacob’s sons decided to lie to Shechem and his father because Shechem had done such a bad thing to their sister Dinah. ¹⁴ The brothers said to them, “We cannot allow our sister to marry you because you are not yet circumcised. That would bring us shame. ¹⁵ But we will allow you to marry her if you do this one thing: Every man in your town must be circumcised like us. ¹⁶ Then your men can marry our women, and our men can marry your women. Then we will become one people. ¹⁷ If you refuse to be circumcised, we will take Dinah away.”

¹⁸ This agreement made Hamor and Shechem very happy. ¹⁹ Shechem was very happy to do what Dinah’s brothers asked.

Shechem was the most honored man in his family. ²⁰ Hamor and Shechem went to the meeting place of their city. They spoke to the men of the city and said, ²¹ “These people want to be friends with us. We want to let them live in our land and be at peace with us. We have enough land for all of us. We are free to marry their women, and we are happy to give them our women to marry. ²² But there is one thing that all our men must agree to do. They must agree to be circumcised as they are. ²³ If we do this, we will become rich from all their cattle and other animals. We should make this agreement with them so that they will stay here with us.” ²⁴ All the men who heard this in the meeting place agreed with Hamor and Shechem. And every man was circumcised at that time.

²⁵ Three days later the men who were circumcised were still sore. Two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, knew that the men would be weak at this time. So they went to the city and killed all the men there. ²⁶ Dinah’s brothers, Simeon and Levi, killed Hamor and his son Shechem. Then they took Dinah out of Shechem’s house and left. ²⁷ Jacob’s sons went to the city and stole everything that was there because of what Shechem had done to their sister. ²⁸ So the brothers took all their animals, all their donkeys, and everything else in the city and in the fields. ²⁹ The brothers took everything those people owned. They even took their wives and children.

³⁰ But Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have caused me a lot of trouble. All the people in this place will hate me. All the Canaanites and the Perizzites will turn against me. There are only a few of us. If the people in this place gather together to fight against us, I will be destroyed. And all our people will be destroyed with me.”

³¹ But the brothers said, “Should we let these people treat our sister like a prostitute? They were wrong to do that to our sister!”

⁷ When John’s followers left, Jesus began talking to the people about John. He said, “What did you people go out to the desert to see? Someone who is weak, like a stem of grass^[a] blowing in the wind? ⁸ Really, what did you expect to see? Someone dressed in fine clothes? Of course not. People who wear fine clothes are all in kings’ palaces. ⁹ So what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, John is a prophet. But I tell you, he is more than that. ¹⁰ This Scripture was written about him:

¹¹ “The truth is that John the Baptizer is greater than anyone who has ever come into this world. But even the least important person in God’s kingdom is greater than John. ¹² Since the time John the Baptizer came until now, God’s kingdom has been going forward strongly.^[b] And people have been trying to take control of it by force. ¹³ Before John came, the Law of Moses and all the prophets told about the things that would happen. ¹⁴ And if you believe what they said, then John is Elijah.^[c] He is the one they said would come. ¹⁵ You people who hear me, listen!

¹⁶ “What can I say about the people who live today? What are they like? The people today are like children sitting in the marketplace. One group of children calls to the other group,

¹⁸ Why do I say people are like that? Because John came, not eating like other people or drinking wine, and people say, ‘He has a demon inside him.’ ¹⁹ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and people say, ‘Look at him! He eats too much and drinks too much wine. He’s a friend of tax collectors and other sinners.’ But wisdom is shown to be right by what it does.”

Jesus Warns People Who Refuse to Believe^(B)

²⁰ Then Jesus criticized the cities where he did most of his miracles. He criticized these cities because the people there did not change their lives and stop sinning. ²¹ Jesus said, “It will be bad for you Chorazin! It will be bad for you Bethsaida! I did many miracles in you. If these same miracles had happened in Tyre and Sidon, the people there would have changed their lives a long time ago. They would have worn sackcloth and put ashes on themselves to show that they were sorry for their sins. ²² But I tell you, on the day of judgment it will be worse for you than for Tyre and Sidon.

²³ “And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to heaven? No! You will be thrown down to the place of death. I did many miracles in you. If these same miracles had happened in Sodom, the people there would have stopped sinning, and it would still be a city today. ²⁴ But I tell you, it will be worse for you in the day of judgment than for Sodom.”

Jesus Offers Rest to His People^(C)

²⁵ Then Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. I am thankful that you have hidden these things from those who are so wise and so smart. But you have shown them to people who are like little children. ²⁶ Yes, Father, you did this because it’s what you really wanted to do.

²⁷ “My Father has given me everything. No one knows the Son—only the Father knows the Son. And no one knows the Father—only the Son knows the Father. And the only people who will know about the Father are those the Son chooses to tell.

²⁸ “Come to me all of you who are tired from the heavy burden you have been forced to carry. I will give you rest. ²⁹ Accept my teaching.^[d] Learn from me. I am gentle and humble in spirit. And you will be able to get some rest. ³⁰ Yes, the teaching that I ask you to accept is easy. The load I give you to carry is light.”

To the director: A song of David.

¹⁹ With wisdom and understanding, the Lord created the earth and sky. ²⁰ With his knowledge, he made the oceans and the clouds that produce rain.