Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
13 It was you who formed my internal organs,[a]
fashioning me within my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you,
because you are fearful and wondrous![b]
Your work is wonderful,
and I am fully aware of it.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
while I was being crafted in a hidden place,
knit together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes looked upon my embryo,
and everything was recorded in your book.
The days scheduled[c] for my formation were inscribed,
even though not one of them had come yet.[d]
17 How deep[e] are your thoughts, God!
How great is their number!
18 Were I to count them,
they would number more than the sand.
When I awake, I will be with you.
Jacob Meets Esau
33 When Jacob looked off in the distance, there was Esau coming toward him, accompanied by 400 men! So Jacob divided Leah’s children, Rachel, and the children of the two servants into separate groups.[a] 2 Then he positioned the women servants and their children first, then Leah and her children next, and then Rachel and Joseph after them. 3 Then he went out to meet Esau,[b] passing in front of all of them, and bowed low to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.
4 Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him. Then he fell on his neck and kissed him. And they wept.
5 When Esau eventually looked around, he saw the women and the children. “Who are these people[c] with you?” he asked.
“The children, whom God has graciously given[d] your servant,” he answered. 6 Then the women servants approached, accompanied by their children, and bowed low. 7 Leah also approached, and she and her children bowed low. After this, Joseph and Rachel approached and bowed low.
8 Then Esau asked, “What are all these livestock for?”
“To solicit favor from you,[e] sir,”[f] Jacob answered.
9 But Esau replied, “I already have so much, my brother, so keep what belongs to you.”
10 “Please,” Jacob implored him, “don’t refuse. If I’m to receive favor from you, then receive this gift from me, because seeing your face is like seeing the face of God, since you have favorably accepted me. 11 So receive my blessing, which has been sent to you, since God has been gracious to me. Besides, I have enough.” Because Jacob kept pressing him, Esau accepted the gifts.
12 Then Esau suggested, “Let’s set out and travel together, but let me go in front of you.”
13 “Sir, you know[g] that the children are frail,” Jacob suggested, “and the ewes and cows with me are still nursing their young. If they’re driven even for a day, the entire flock will die. 14 So allow yourself to[h] go ahead of your servant while I travel more slowly, letting the herds set their own pace[i] with the children until I arrive to see my lord in Seir.”
15 Esau said, “Let me leave with you some of the people who are with me.”
“Why do that?” Jacob asked. “I’ve already found favor in your sight, sir.”[j] 16 So Esau set out that very day back on his way to Seir, 17 but Jacob set out for Succoth, built a house there, and constructed some cattle shelters. He named the place Succoth.[k]
You are Children of a Free Woman
21 Tell me, those of you who want to live under the Law: Are you really listening to what the Law says? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman. 23 Now the slave woman’s son was conceived through human means, while the free woman’s son was conceived through divine[a] promise. 24 This is being said as an allegory, for these women represent two covenants. The one woman, Hagar, is from Mount Sinai, and her children are born into slavery. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to present-day Jerusalem, because she is in slavery along with her children. 26 But the heavenly Jerusalem is the free woman, and she is our spiritual mother.[b] 27 For it is written,
“Rejoice, you childless woman,
who cannot give birth to any children!
Break into song and shout,
you who feel no pains of childbirth!
For the children of the deserted woman
are more numerous than the children
of the woman who has a husband.”[c]
28 So you,[d] brothers, are children of the promise, like Isaac. 29 But just as then the son who was conceived according to the flesh persecuted the son who was conceived according to the Spirit, so it is now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Drive out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman must never share the inheritance with the son of the free woman.”[e] 31 So then, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman but of the free woman.
Live in the Freedom that the Messiah Provides
5 The Messiah[f] has set us free so that we may enjoy the benefits of freedom.[g] So keep on standing firm in it, and stop putting yourselves under the yoke of slavery again.
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