Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Jacob acquires his father’s blessing

27 When Isaac had grown old and his eyesight was failing, he summoned his older son Esau and said to him, “My son?”

And Esau said, “I’m here.”

² He said, “I’m old and don’t know when I will die. ³ So now, take your hunting gear, your bow and quiver of arrows, go out to the field, and hunt game for me. ⁴ Make me the delicious food that I love and bring it to me so I can eat. Then I can bless you before I die.”

⁵ Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau went out to the field to hunt game to bring back, ⁶ Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “I just heard your father saying to your brother Esau, ⁷ ‘Bring me some game and make me some delicious food so I can eat, and I will bless you in the Lord’s presence before I die.’ ⁸ Now, my son, listen to me, to what I’m telling you to do. ⁹ Go to the flock and get me two healthy young goats so I can prepare them as the delicious food your father loves. ¹⁰ You can bring it to your father, he will eat, and then he will bless you before he dies.”

¹¹ Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, “My brother Esau is a hairy man, but I have smooth skin. ¹² What if my father touches me and thinks I’m making fun of him? I will be cursed instead of blessed.”

¹³ His mother said to him, “Your curse will be on me, my son. Just listen to me: go and get them for me.” ¹⁴ So he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and his mother made the delicious food that his father loved. ¹⁵ Rebekah took her older son Esau’s favorite clothes that were in the house with her, and she put them on her younger son Jacob. ¹⁶ On his arms and smooth neck she put the hide of young goats, ¹⁷ and the delicious food and the bread she had made she put into her son’s hands.

The function of the Law

⁷ So what are we going to say? That the Law is sin? Absolutely not! But I wouldn’t have known sin except through the Law. I wouldn’t have known the desire for what others have if the Law had not said, Don’t desire to take what others have.^{[a] 8} But sin seized the opportunity and used this commandment to produce all kinds of desires in me. Sin is dead without the Law. ⁹ I used to be alive without the Law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life, ¹⁰ and I died. So the commandment that was intended to give life brought death. ¹¹ Sin seized the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and killed me. ¹² So the Law itself is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.

Living under the Law

¹³ So did something good bring death to me? Absolutely not! But sin caused my death through something good so that sin would be exposed as sin. That way sin would become even more thoroughly sinful through the commandment. ¹⁴ We know that the Law is spiritual, but I’m made of flesh and blood, and I’m sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I don’t know what I’m doing, because I don’t do what I want to do. Instead, I do the thing that I hate. ¹⁶ But if I’m doing the thing that I don’t want to do, I’m agreeing that the Law is right. ¹⁷ But now I’m not the one doing it anymore. Instead, it’s sin that lives in me. ¹⁸ I know that good doesn’t live in me—that is, in my body. The desire to do good is inside of me, but I can’t do it. ¹⁹ I don’t do the good that I want to do, but I do the evil that I don’t want to do. ²⁰ But if I do the very thing that I don’t want to do, then I’m not the one doing it anymore. Instead, it is sin that lives in me that is doing it.