The Daily Audio Bible

¹³ You Yourself said, ‘I will most certainly do good with you, and will make your seed like the sand of the sea that cannot be counted because of its abundance.’”

¹⁴ So he stayed overnight there. Then from all that had come into his possession he took an offering for Esau his brother: ¹⁵ 200 female goats, 20 billy goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams, ¹⁶ 30 milking camels with their young, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys and 10 male donkeys. ¹⁷ He put them in the hands of his servants, each herd by itself, and he said to his servants, “Pass over before me, and put a gap between each of the herds.” ¹⁸ Then he commanded the first one saying, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks you saying, ‘To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and to whom do all these before you belong?’ ¹⁹ then you are to say, ‘To your servant, to Jacob—it’s an offering sent to my lord, to Esau. And look, he’s also behind us.’” ²⁰ And he also commanded the second one, the third one, and all those who were going behind the flocks, saying, “Say the same exact thing to Esau when you find him. ²¹ Then you are to say, ‘Look, your servant Jacob is also behind us.’” For he thought, “Let me appease him with the offering that goes ahead of me, and afterward see his face, perhaps he’ll lift up my face.” ²² So the offering passed over ahead of him, while he spent that night in the camp.

²³ Then he got up that night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of the Jabbok. ²⁴ He took them and sent them across the stream, and he sent across whatever he had.

Jacob Wrestles With God

²⁵ So Jacob remained all by himself. Then a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn. ^{[a] 26} When He saw that He had not overcome him, He struck the socket of his hip, so He dislocated the socket of Jacob’s hip when He wrestled with him. ²⁷ Then He said, “Let Me go, for the dawn has broken.”

But he said, “I won’t let You go unless You bless me.”

²⁸ Then He said to him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he said.

²⁹ Then He said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but rather Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men, and you have overcome.”

³⁰ Then Jacob asked and said, “Please tell me Your name.”

But He said, “What’s this—you are asking My name?” Then He blessed him there.

³¹ So Jacob named the place Peniel, “for I’ve seen God face to face, and my life has been spared.”

³² Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed by Peniel—limping because of his hip. ³³ That is why the children of Israel do not eat the tendon of the hip socket, to this very day, because He struck the socket of Jacob’s thigh on the tendon of the hip.

Jacob Meets Esau

33 Then Jacob glanced up and saw, behold, there was Esau coming—and 400 men with him. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel and the two female servants. ² He put the female servants and their children first, then Leah and her children behind them, then Rachel and Joseph behind them. ³ But he himself passed on ahead of them, and bowed to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother.

⁴ But Esau ran to meet him, hugged him, fell on his neck and kissed him—and they wept. ⁵ His eyes glanced up and he saw the women and the children, and said, “Who are these with you?”

“The children whom God has graciously given your servant,” he said. ⁶ Then the female servants approached, they and their children, and bowed down. ⁷ Leah also approached, along with her children, and they bowed down, and finally, Joseph and Rachel approached and bowed down.

⁸ “What do you mean by this whole caravan that I’ve met?”

So he said, “To find favor in your eyes, my lord.”

⁹ But Esau said, “I have plenty! O my brother, do keep all that belongs to you.”

¹⁰ Yet Jacob said, “No, please! If I have found favor in your eyes, then you will take my offering from my hand. For this is the reason I’ve seen your face—it is like seeing the face of God—and you’ve accepted me! ¹¹ Please, take my blessing that was brought to you, because God has been gracious to me, and because I have everything.” So he kept urging him until he accepted.

¹² Then he said, “Let’s journey and be on our way, and I’ll go ahead of you. ¹³ He continued, “My lord knows that the children are tender, and that the flocks and the cattle in my care are nursing. So if they were pushed hard just one day, all the flocks would die. ¹⁴ Please, let my lord pass on ahead of your servant, and I’ll move on further gradually, at a pace suited to the livestock that are before me and at a pace suited to the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.”

¹⁵ Then Esau said, “Please let me leave with you some of the people who are with me.”

But he said, “What’s this? Let me find favor in my lord’s eyes.”

¹⁶ So on that day Esau returned on his way to Seir, ¹⁷ but Jacob journeyed to Sukkot and built a house for himself, and for his livestock he made booths. That is the reason that place is called Sukkot.

¹⁸ So Jacob arrived in shalom to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan-aram, and camped right in front of the city. ¹⁹ He purchased the portion of the field there where he had pitched his tent from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for 100 pieces of money. ²⁰ There he set up an altar, and he called it, El is Israel’s God.

Dinah Defiled by Shechem

34 Now Dinah, Leah’s daughter whom she bore for Jacob, went out to look at the daughters of the land. ² When Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he took her and lay with her and raped her. ³ But his soul clung to Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, and he loved the young woman and spoke reassuringly to the young woman. ⁴ So Shechem said to his father Hamor saying, “Get me this girl for a wife.”

⁵ Now Jacob had heard that he had defiled his daughter Dinah while his sons were with his livestock in the field, so Jacob kept quiet until they came in. ⁶ Meanwhile Shechem’s father Hamor went out to Jacob in order to speak with him. ⁷ Jacob’s sons had already come in from the field when they heard, and the men were deeply grieved and furious, because he had committed a vile deed in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, which ought never to be done.

⁸ But Hamor spoke with them saying, “My son Shechem—he’s very attached to your daughter. Please give her to him for a wife. ⁹ Intermarry with us. You can give your daughters to us, and you can take our daughters for yourselves. ¹⁰ You can live with us, and the land will be open to you: live in it, move about freely in it, and settle down in it.”

¹¹ Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, “Would that I find favor in your eyes! Whatever you say to me I’ll give. ¹² Set the dowry and the presents as high as you like and I’ll give whatever you say to me. But give me the young woman as a wife.”

¹³ But Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully as they spoke, because he had defiled their sister Dinah. ¹⁴ They said to them, “We can’t do this thing—give our sister to a man who is uncircumcised—for this is a disgrace to us. ¹⁵ Only by this will we consent to you: if you will become like us, by circumcising every male. ¹⁶ Then we’ll give you our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves, and live with you, and become one people. ¹⁷ But if you don’t listen to us and be circumcised, we’ll take our daughter and leave.”

¹⁸ Now their words seemed good to Hamor as well as Hamor’s son Shechem. ¹⁹ So the young man did not hesitate to do it, since he delighted in Jacob’s daughter. Now he was honored above everyone else in his father’s house. ²⁰ So Hamor and his son Shechem came into the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, saying: ²¹ “These men are enjoying a peaceful relationship with us and they are living in the land and moving about freely in it. As for the land, look, it’s spread out on both sides before us. We can take their daughters to be our wives, and we can give our daughters to them. ²² But by this did these men consent to us, to live with us and to become one people—when all our males are circumcised as they are circumcised. ²³ Their livestock and their possessions: won’t they be ours? Only let us consent to them so that they’ll live with us.”

²⁴ Now everyone who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor and to his son Shechem, and every male was circumcised, every one who went out the gate of his city. ²⁵ Then on the third day while they were in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and came against the city undisturbed and killed every male. ²⁶ Hamor and his son Shechem they killed with the sword, then took Dinah from Shechem’s house and left. ²⁷ Jacob’s sons came upon the slain and plundered the city because they defiled their sister. ²⁸ They took their flocks, their cattle and their donkeys, those that were in the city as well as those that were in the field. ²⁹ All their wealth, their little children, and their wives they captured and plundered, as well as everything that was in the houses.

³⁰ But Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You’ve brought trouble on me, making me a stench among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I am but a few men—they’ll gather against me and strike me—then I’ll be destroyed, my household and I.”

³¹ But they said, “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?”

A Prophet Without Honor

⁷ Now as they were leaving, Yeshua began to talk to the crowd concerning John. “What did you go out to the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? ⁸ No? So what did you go out to see? A man dressed in finery? Look, those who wear finery are in the palaces of kings! ⁹ Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, even more than a prophet. ¹⁰ This is the one about whom it is written,

¹¹ “Amen, I tell you, among those born of women, none has arisen greater than John the Immerser. Yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. ¹² From the days of John the Immerser until now, the kingdom of heaven is treated with violence, and the violent grasp hold of it. ¹³ For all the prophets and the Torah prophesied until the time of John. ¹⁴ And if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. ¹⁵ He who has ears, let him hear!

¹⁶ “But to what shall I compare this generation? It’s like children sitting in the marketplaces who call to one other, saying,

¹⁸ “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon!’ ¹⁹ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”^[b]

²⁰ Then Yeshua began to denounce the towns where most of His miracles had happened, because they did not turn from their sins. ²¹ “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon,^[c] they would have turned long ago in sackcloth and ashes. ²² Nevertheless I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the Day of Judgment than for you. ²³ And you, Capernaum? Will you be lifted up to heaven? No, you will go down to Sheol! For if the miracles done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. ²⁴ Nevertheless I tell you that it will be more bearable for the land of Sodom on the Day of Judgment than for you.”

Yeshua Teaches the Ways of His Father

²⁵ At that time Yeshua said in response, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and discerning and revealed them to infants. ²⁶ Yes, Father, for this way was pleasing to You.

²⁷ “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son^[d] and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. ²⁸ Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and ‘you will find rest for your souls.’ ^{[e] 30} For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

There Is No God?

Psalm 14