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Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding on to Esau’s heel, so he was named Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them.
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When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field; but Jacob was a civilized man, living in tents.
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Now Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for game; but Rebekah loved Jacob.
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When Jacob had cooked a stew one day, Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted;
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and Esau said to Jacob, “Please let me have a mouthful of that red stuff there, for I am exhausted.” Therefore he was called Edom by name.
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But Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.”
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And Jacob said, “First swear to me”; so he swore an oath to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob.
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Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he ate and drank, and got up and went on his way. So Esau despised his birthright.
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Jacob’s Deception
Now it came about, when Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see, that he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.” And he said to him, “Here I am.”
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Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Behold, I heard your father speak to your brother Esau, saying,
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But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, “Behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man and I am a smooth man.
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Then Rebekah took the best garments of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob.
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She also gave the delicious meal and the bread which she had made to her son Jacob.
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Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn; I have done as you told me. Come now, sit and eat of my game, so that you may bless me.”
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Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come close, so that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not.”
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So Jacob came close to his father Isaac, and he touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”
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The Stolen Blessing
Now it came about, as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had hardly gone out from the presence of his father Isaac, that his brother Esau came in from his hunting.
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Then Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob, for he has betrayed me these two times? He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.” And he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?”
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So Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him; and Esau said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”
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Now when the words of her elder son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she sent word and called her younger son Jacob, and said to him, “Behold your brother Esau is consoling himself concerning you by planning to kill you.
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And Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am tired of living because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth like these from the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?”
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Jacob Is Sent Away
So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and commanded him, saying to him, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.
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Then Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.
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Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take to himself a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, saying, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,”
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and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan-aram.
