Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Jacob Tricks Isaac

27 Now it was when Isaac grew old and his eyes were too dim to see, that he called Esau his elder son, and said to him, “My son.”

“Here I am,” he said to him.

² “Look, I’m old,” he said. “I don’t know the day of my death. ³ So now, please take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt me some game. ⁴ Then prepare me a delicious meal that I love, and bring it to me that I may eat, so that my soul may bless you before I die.”

⁵ Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac was speaking to Esau his son. So while Esau went to the field to hunt game to bring in, ⁶ Rebekah said to Jacob her son, “Look, I heard your father speaking to your brother Esau saying, ⁷ ‘Bring me some game and prepare me a delicious meal that I may eat and bless you in Adonai’s presence before my death.’ ⁸ So now, my son, listen to my voice, to what I am commanding you. ⁹ Go now to the flock and bring me two good young goats from there, so that I may prepare them as a delicious meal for your father—that he’ll love. ¹⁰ Then you’ll bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before his death.”

¹¹ But Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, but I’m a smooth man. ¹² Perhaps my father will touch me, and he’ll take me for a mocker, and I’ll bring upon myself a curse and not a blessing.”

¹³ Then his mother said to him, “Let your curse fall on me, my son. Just listen to me, and go, get them for me.”

¹⁴ So he went and got them, and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared a delicious meal that his father would love. ¹⁵ Rebekah also took her elder son Esau’s favorite clothes that were with her in the house, and she put them on her younger son Jacob, ¹⁶ along with the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the hairless part of his neck. ¹⁷ She put the delicious meal and the bread that she had prepared in the hand of Jacob her son.

⁷ What shall we say then? Is the Torah sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the Torah. For I would not have known about coveting if the Torah had not said, “You shall not covet.” ^{[a] 8} But sin, taking an opportunity, worked in me through the commandment all kinds of coveting. For apart from the Torah, sin is dead.

⁹ Once I was alive apart from the Torah; but when the commandment came, sin came to life ¹⁰ and I died. The commandment meant for life was found to cause death. ^{[b] 11} Sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ^{[c] 12} So then, the Torah is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

¹³ Therefore did that which is good become death to me? May it never be! Rather it was sin working death in me—through that which is good—so that sin might be shown to be sin, and that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. ¹⁴ For we know that the Torah is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold to sin. ¹⁵ For I do not understand what I am doing—for what I do not want, this I practice; but what I hate, this I do. ¹⁶ But if I do what I do not want to do, then I agree with the Torah—that it is good.

¹⁷ So now it is no longer I doing it, but sin dwelling in me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me—that is, in my flesh. For to will is present in me, but to do the good is not. ¹⁹ For the good that I want, I do not do; but the evil that I do not want, this I practice. ²⁰ But if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I doing it, but sin that dwells in me.