Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Jacob Tricks Isaac

27 When Isaac was old, his eyesight was poor, so he could not see clearly. One day he called his older son Esau to him and said, “Son.”

Esau answered, “Here I am.”

² Isaac said, “I am old and don’t know when I might die. ³ So take your bow and arrows and go hunting in the field for an animal for me to eat. ⁴ When you prepare the tasty food that I love, bring it to me, and I will eat. Then I will bless you before I die.” ⁵ So Esau went out in the field to hunt.

Rebekah was listening as Isaac said this to his son Esau. ⁶ She said to her son Jacob, “Listen, I heard your father saying to your brother Esau, ⁷ ‘Kill an animal and prepare some tasty food for me to eat. Then I will bless you in the presence of the Lord before I die.’ ⁸ So obey me, my son, and do what I tell you. ⁹ Go out to our goats and bring me two of the best young ones. I will prepare them just the way your father likes them. ¹⁰ Then you will take the food to your father, and he will bless you before he dies.”

¹¹ But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, “My brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am smooth! ¹² If my father touches me, he will know I am not Esau. Then he will not bless me but will place a curse on me because I tried to trick him.”

¹³ So Rebekah said to him, “If your father puts a curse on you, I will accept the blame. Just do what I said. Go get the goats for me.”

¹⁴ So Jacob went out and got two goats and brought them to his mother, and she cooked them in the special way Isaac enjoyed. ¹⁵ She took the best clothes of her older son Esau that were in the house and put them on the younger son Jacob. ¹⁶ She also took the skins of the goats and put them on Jacob’s hands and neck. ¹⁷ Then she gave Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made.

Our Fight Against Sin

⁷ You might think I am saying that sin and the law are the same thing. That is not true. But the law was the only way I could learn what sin meant. I would never have known what it means to want to take something belonging to someone else if the law had not said, “You must not want to take your neighbor’s things.”^{[a] 8} And sin found a way to use that command and cause me to want all kinds of things I should not want. But without the law, sin has no power. ⁹ I was alive before I knew the law. But when the law’s command came to me, then sin began to live, ¹⁰ and I died. The command was meant to bring life, but for me it brought death. ¹¹ Sin found a way to fool me by using the command to make me die.

¹² So the law is holy, and the command is holy and right and good. ¹³ Does this mean that something that is good brought death to me? No! Sin used something that is good to bring death to me. This happened so that I could see what sin is really like; the command was used to show that sin is very evil.

The War Within Us

¹⁴ We know that the law is spiritual, but I am not spiritual since sin rules me as if I were its slave. ¹⁵ I do not understand the things I do. I do not do what I want to do, and I do the things I hate. ¹⁶ And if I do not want to do the hated things I do, that means I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ But I am not really the one who is doing these hated things; it is sin living in me that does them. ¹⁸ Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is earthly and sinful. I want to do the things that are good, but I do not do them. ¹⁹ I do not do the good things I want to do, but I do the bad things I do not want to do. ²⁰ So if I do things I do not want to do, then I am not the one doing them. It is sin living in me that does those things.