Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

III

IV

Chapter 27

Jacob’s Deception.^{[a] 1} When Isaac was so old that his eyesight had failed him, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son!” “Here I am!” he replied. ² Isaac then said, “Now I have grown old. I do not know when I might die. ³ So now take your hunting gear—your quiver and bow—and go out into the open country to hunt some game for me. ⁴ Then prepare for me a dish in the way I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you^[b] before I die.”

⁵ Rebekah had been listening while Isaac was speaking to his son Esau. So when Esau went out into the open country to hunt some game for his father,^{(A) 6} Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Listen! I heard your father tell your brother Esau, ⁷ ‘Bring me some game and prepare a dish for me to eat, that I may bless you with the Lord’s approval before I die.’ ⁸ Now, my son, obey me in what I am about to order you. ⁹ Go to the flock and get me two choice young goats so that with these I might prepare a dish for your father in the way he likes. ¹⁰ Then bring it to your father to eat, that he may bless you before he dies.” ¹¹ But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, “But my brother Esau is a hairy man and I am smooth-skinned!^{(B) 12} Suppose my father feels me? He will think I am making fun of him, and I will bring on myself a curse instead of a blessing.” ¹³ His mother, however, replied: “Let any curse against you, my son, fall on me! Just obey me. Go and get me the young goats.”

¹⁴ So Jacob went and got them and brought them to his mother, and she prepared a dish in the way his father liked. ¹⁵ Rebekah then took the best clothes of her older son Esau that she had in the house, and gave them to her younger son Jacob to wear; ¹⁶ and with the goatskins she covered up his hands and the hairless part of his neck. ¹⁷ Then she gave her son Jacob the dish and the bread she had prepared.

Acquaintance with Sin Through the Law. ^7 [a]What then can we say? That the law is sin? Of course not!^[b] Yet I did not know sin except through the law, and I did not know what it is to covet except that the law said, “You shall not covet.”^{(A) 8} But sin, finding an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetousness. Apart from the law sin is dead.^{(B) 9} I once lived outside the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive; ¹⁰ then I died, and the commandment that was for life turned out to be death for me.^{(C) 11} For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it put me to death.^{(D) 12} So then the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.^(E)

Sin and Death.^{[c] 13} Did the good, then, become death for me? Of course not! Sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin, worked death in me through the good, so that sin might become sinful beyond measure through the commandment.^{(F) 14} We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold into slavery to sin.^{(G) 15} What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good. ¹⁷ So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. ¹⁸ For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.^{(H) 19} For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. ²⁰ Now if [I] do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.