Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Isaac blesses Jacob

27 Isaac became old. He could not see anything because his eyes were weak. He called for his older son, Esau. Isaac said, ‘My son.’ Esau replied, ‘Yes, I am here.’ ² Isaac said, ‘I am an old man. I may die very soon. ³ Get your bow and your arrows.^[a] Go out into the country and kill some wild animals for me. ⁴ Then prepare the food that I like to eat. Bring it to me so that I can eat it. Then I will give you my blessing before I die.’^[b]

⁵ Rebekah listened to what Isaac said to Esau. She waited until Esau went out to the country to kill an animal and bring back the meat. ⁶ Then she said to Jacob, ‘I heard your father say this to Esau: ⁷ “Bring me some meat and prepare the food that I like to eat. When I have eaten it, I will give you my blessing. I will bless you in front of the Lord before I die.”  ⁸ Now my son, listen carefully and do as I tell you. ⁹ Go out to the animals and bring two goats to me. They must be very good young goats. Then I will prepare some food that your father likes to eat. I will cook the meat in the way that he likes. ¹⁰ Then take the food to your father. When he has eaten it, he will give you his blessing before he dies.’

¹¹ Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, ‘That will be difficult. Hair covers my brother's skin. But my skin does not have any hair. ¹² My father may touch me. Then he will know that I am deceiving him. He will not bless me. He will curse me instead.’ ¹³ Jacob's mother said, ‘My son, the curse will happen to me, not you. Do what I say. Go and get the things that I told you.’

¹⁴ Jacob went and he got the goats. He brought them to his mother. She prepared some food in the way that Isaac liked to eat. ¹⁵ Then Rebekah took some of Esau's best clothes that were in her house. She put them on Jacob, her younger son. ¹⁶ She covered Jacob's hands with the skin from the goats. She also covered the part of his neck that had no hair. ¹⁷ Then she gave to Jacob the food that Isaac liked to eat. And she gave him some bread that she had made.

God's Law teaches us about sin

⁷ So someone might say, ‘God's Law must be bad.’ No! Certainly, it is not bad! Without that law, I would not have known what sin really is. One rule says, ‘You must not want to take things for yourself that belong to other people.’^[a] Without that command, I would not have known that it is wrong to want other people's things. ⁸ But the command gave sin a chance to come into my thoughts. As a result, I started to want all kinds of wrong things. If there is no law to tell us what is wrong, then sin has no power to make us guilty.

⁹ As for me, there was a time when I did not know God's laws. I was living without any law to obey. But when I learned about that command, sin now had power in my life. ¹⁰ As a result, I became separate from God, as if I had died.^[b] So the command that should have brought life to me brought death instead. ¹¹ That command gave sin a chance to deceive me. It caused me to become separate from God.

¹² So we understand that God's Law and its commands are completely good. They are holy, fair and good.

¹³ But someone might say, ‘This means that something good brought death to you.’ No! God's Law did not do that! It was sin that brought death to me. Sin used God's good Law to show that I was guilty. Because of that, we can see that sin is really very bad. The commands in God's Law help to show that sin is completely bad.

The power of sin in our lives

¹⁴ We understand that God's Law is spiritual. But I am weak and human. I am like a slave that has sin as my master. ¹⁵ I do not understand the things that I do. I do not do the good things that I want to do. Instead, I do the things that I hate to do. ¹⁶ But I do not want to do those wrong things. So I am agreeing that God's Law is good. ¹⁷ So it is not really I myself who am doing those wrong things. Instead, sin has power in my life. It is sin that causes me to do wrong things.

¹⁸ I know that there is nothing good in me. I am weak and human. I want to do what is good. But I am unable to do it. ¹⁹ I do not do the good things that I want to do. Instead, I continue to do the bad things that I do not want to do. ²⁰ So, when I do bad things that I do not want to do, it is not really I myself who do them. It is sin that causes me to do wrong things, because it has power in my life.