Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Isaac Blesses Jacob

27 When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could not see, he called Esau his oldest son and said to him, “My son.”

And he answered him, “Here I am.”

² He said, “I am old. I do not know the day of my death. ³ Therefore, please take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me. ⁴ And prepare for me savory food, such as I love, and bring it to me that I may eat, so that my soul may bless you before I die.”

⁵ Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to Esau his son. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for wild game and bring it back, ⁶ Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “I heard your father speak to your brother Esau, saying, ⁷ ‘Bring me wild game, and prepare for me savory food, that I may eat and bless you in the presence of the Lord before my death.’ ⁸ Now therefore, my son, listen to me as I command you. ⁹ Go now to the flock, and get me two choice young goats, so that I may prepare from them savory food for your father, such as he loves. ¹⁰ Then you will take it to your father, so that he may eat and so that he may bless you before his death.”

¹¹ But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a man of smooth skin. ¹² Perhaps my father will feel me, and I will seem to him as a deceiver, and I will bring a curse on myself and not a blessing.”

¹³ His mother said to him, “Let your curse be upon me, my son. Only listen to me and go get them for me.”

¹⁴ He went and got them and brought them to his mother. Then his mother prepared savory food such as his father loved. ¹⁵ Then Rebekah took the best clothes belonging to her older son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son. ¹⁶ Then she put the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. ¹⁷ She put the savory food and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hands of her son Jacob.

The Problem of Indwelling Sin

⁷ What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid! But I did not know sin, except through the law. I would not have known coveting if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”^{[a] 8} But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law sin is dead. ⁹ I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. ¹⁰ And the commandment, which was intended for life, proved to be death in me. ¹¹ For sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and killed me through it. ¹² So then, the law is holy and the commandment is holy and just and good.

¹³ Therefore has that which is good become death unto me? God forbid! Rather, sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was working death in me through that which is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

¹⁴ We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. ¹⁵ For what I am doing, I do not understand, for I do not practice what I will to do, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ But if I practice what I do not will to do, I agree with the law that it is good. ¹⁷ So now it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. ¹⁸ For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing, for the will to do what is right is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. ¹⁹ For the good I desire to do, I do not do, 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 does it, but sin that lives in me.