Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
10 Hear, O daughter, consider and incline your ear;
forget your people and your father’s house,(A)
11 and the king will desire your beauty.
Since he is your lord, bow to him;(B)
12 Daughter Tyre will seek your favor with gifts,
the richest of the people(C) 13 with all kinds of wealth.
Isaac Blesses Jacob
27 When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, “My son,” and he answered, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death.(A) 3 Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me.(B) 4 Then prepare for me savory food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.”(C)
5 Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game for his father,[a] 6 Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “I heard your father say to your brother Esau, 7 ‘Bring me game, and prepare for me savory food to eat, that I may bless you before the Lord before I die.’ 8 Now therefore, my son, obey my word as I command you.(D) 9 Go to the flock, and get me two choice kids, so that I may prepare from them savory food for your father, such as he likes, 10 and you shall take it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.” 11 But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a man of smooth skin.(E) 12 Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse on myself and not a blessing.”(F) 13 His mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my word, and go, get them for me.”(G) 14 So he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared savory food, such as his father loved. 15 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,(H) 16 and she put the skins of the kids on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. 17 Then she handed the savory food and the bread that she had prepared to her son Jacob.
The Law and Sin
7 What then are we to say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”(A) 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law sin lies dead.(B) 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived 10 and I died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.(C) 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.(D)
13 Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin that was working death in me through what is good, in order that it might be shown to be sin, so that through the commandment sin might become sinful beyond measure.
The Inner Conflict
14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin.[a] 15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.(E) 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17 But in fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that the good does not dwell within me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability.(F) 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.