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10  Hear, O daughter; consider and incline your ear; ♦︎
   forget your own people and your father’s house.
11  So shall the king have pleasure in your beauty; ♦︎
   he is your lord, so do him honour.
12  The people of Tyre shall bring you gifts; ♦︎
   the richest of the people shall seek your favour.
13  The king’s daughter is all glorious within; ♦︎
   her clothing is embroidered cloth of gold.
14  She shall be brought to the king in raiment of needlework; ♦︎
   after her the virgins that are her companions.
15  With joy and gladness shall they be brought ♦︎
   and enter into the palace of the king.
16  ‘Instead of your fathers you shall have sons, ♦︎
   whom you shall make princes over all the land.
17  ‘I will make your name to be remembered through all generations; ♦︎
   therefore shall the peoples praise you for ever and ever.’

Isaac Blesses Jacob

27When 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.’ ²He said, ‘See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death. ³Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me. ⁴Then prepare for me savoury food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.’

5 Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, ⁶Rebekah said to her son Jacob, ‘I heard your father say to your brother Esau, ⁷“Bring me game, and prepare for me savoury food to eat, that I may bless you before the Lord before I die.” ⁸Now therefore, my son, obey my word as I command you. ⁹Go to the flock, and get me two choice kids, so that I may prepare from them savoury food for your father, such as he likes; ¹⁰and you shall take it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.’ ¹¹But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, ‘Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a man of smooth skin. ¹²Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him, and bring a curse on myself and not a blessing.’ ¹³His mother said to him, ‘Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my word, and go, get them for me.’ ¹⁴So he went and got them and brought them to his mother; and his mother prepared savoury food, such as his father loved. ¹⁵Then 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; ¹⁶and she put the skins of the kids on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. ¹⁷Then she handed the savoury food, and the bread that she had prepared, to her son Jacob.

The Law and Sin

7 What then should we 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.’ ⁸But sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead. ⁹I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived ¹⁰and I died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. ¹¹For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹²So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.

13 Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment 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.^{* 15}I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.