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27 When the boys grew up, Esau was a skilful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. ²⁸Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob.

Esau Sells His Birthright

29 Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished. ³⁰Esau said to Jacob, ‘Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!’ (Therefore he was called Edom.^*) ³¹Jacob said, ‘First sell me your birthright.’ ³²Esau said, ‘I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?’ ³³Jacob said, ‘Swear to me first.’^* So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. ³⁴Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

Isaac and Abimelech

26Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar, to King Abimelech of the Philistines. ²The Lord appeared to Isaac^* and said, ‘Do not go down to Egypt; settle in the land that I shall show you. ³Reside in this land as an alien, and I will be with you, and will bless you; for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will fulfil the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. ⁴I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and will give to your offspring all these lands; and all the nations of the earth shall gain blessing for themselves through your offspring, ⁵because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.’

6 So Isaac settled in Gerar. ⁷When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, ‘She is my sister’; for he was afraid to say, ‘My wife,’ thinking, ‘or else the men of the place might kill me for the sake of Rebekah, because she is attractive in appearance.’ ⁸When Isaac had been there a long time, King Abimelech of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw him fondling his wife Rebekah. ⁹So Abimelech called for Isaac, and said, ‘So she is your wife! Why then did you say, “She is my sister”?’ Isaac said to him, ‘Because I thought I might die because of her.’ ¹⁰Abimelech said, ‘What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.’ ¹¹So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, ‘Whoever touches this man or his wife shall be put to death.’

12 Isaac sowed seed in that land, and in the same year reaped a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, ¹³and the man became rich; he prospered more and more until he became very wealthy. ¹⁴He had possessions of flocks and herds, and a great household, so that the Philistines envied him. ¹⁵(Now the Philistines had stopped up and filled with earth all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham.) ¹⁶And Abimelech said to Isaac, ‘Go away from us; you have become too powerful for us.’

17 So Isaac departed from there and camped in the valley of Gerar and settled there. ¹⁸Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham; for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he gave them the names that his father had given them. ¹⁹But when Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water, ²⁰the herders of Gerar quarrelled with Isaac’s herders, saying, ‘The water is ours.’ So he called the well Esek,^* because they contended with him. ²¹Then they dug another well, and they quarrelled over that one also; so he called it Sitnah.^{* 22}He moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he called it Rehoboth,^* saying, ‘Now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.’

23 From there he went up to Beer-sheba. ²⁴And that very night the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am the God of your father Abraham; do not be afraid, for I am with you and will bless you and make your offspring numerous for my servant Abraham’s sake.’ ²⁵So he built an altar there, called on the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac’s servants dug a well.

26 Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army. ²⁷Isaac said to them, ‘Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?’ ²⁸They said, ‘We see plainly that the Lord has been with you; so we say, let there be an oath between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you ²⁹so that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord.’ ³⁰So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. ³¹In the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths; and Isaac set them on their way, and they departed from him in peace. ³²That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well that they had dug, and said to him, ‘We have found water!’ ³³He called it Shibah;^* therefore the name of the city is Beer-sheba^* to this day.

Esau’s Hittite Wives

34 When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite; ³⁵and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.

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.

18 So he went in to his father, and said, ‘My father’; and he said, ‘Here I am; who are you, my son?’ ¹⁹Jacob said to his father, ‘I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, so that you may bless me.’ ²⁰But Isaac said to his son, ‘How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?’ He answered, ‘Because the Lord your God granted me success.’ ²¹Then Isaac said to Jacob, ‘Come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.’ ²²So Jacob went up to his father Isaac, who felt him and said, ‘The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.’ ²³He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him. ²⁴He said, ‘Are you really my son Esau?’ He answered, ‘I am.’ ²⁵Then he said, ‘Bring it to me, that I may eat of my son’s game and bless you.’ So he brought it to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank. ²⁶Then his father Isaac said to him, ‘Come near and kiss me, my son.’ ²⁷So he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his garments, and blessed him, and said,
‘Ah, the smell of my son
   is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed.
²⁸ May God give you of the dew of heaven,
   and of the fatness of the earth,
   and plenty of grain and wine.
²⁹ Let peoples serve you,
   and nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
   and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you,
   and blessed be everyone who blesses you!’

Esau’s Lost Blessing

30 As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of his father Isaac, his brother Esau came in from his hunting. ³¹He also prepared savoury food, and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, ‘Let my father sit up and eat of his son’s game, so that you may bless me.’ ³²His father Isaac said to him, ‘Who are you?’ He answered, ‘I am your firstborn son, Esau.’ ³³Then Isaac trembled violently, and said, ‘Who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me, and I ate it all^* before you came, and I have blessed him?—yes, and blessed he shall be!’ ³⁴When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, ‘Bless me, me also, father!’ ³⁵But he said, ‘Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.’ ³⁶Esau said, ‘Is he not rightly named Jacob?^* For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright; and look, now he has taken away my blessing.’ Then he said, ‘Have you not reserved a blessing for me?’ ³⁷Isaac answered Esau, ‘I have already made him your lord, and I have given him all his brothers as servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son?’ ³⁸Esau said to his father, ‘Have you only one blessing, father? Bless me, me also, father!’ And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.

39 Then his father Isaac answered him:
‘See, away from^* the fatness of the earth shall your home be,
   and away from^* the dew of heaven on high.
⁴⁰ By your sword you shall live,
   and you shall serve your brother;
but when you break loose,^*
   you shall break his yoke from your neck.’

Jacob Escapes Esau’s Fury

41 Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, ‘The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.’ ⁴²But the words of her elder son Esau were told to Rebekah; so she sent and called her younger son Jacob and said to him, ‘Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you. ⁴³Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran, ⁴⁴and stay with him for a while, until your brother’s fury turns away— ⁴⁵until your brother’s anger against you turns away, and he forgets what you have done to him; then I will send, and bring you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?’

46 Then Rebekah said to Isaac, ‘I am weary of my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women such as these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?’

28Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, ‘You shall not marry one of the Canaanite women. ²Go at once to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father; and take as wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. ³May God Almighty^* bless you and make you fruitful and numerous, that you may become a company of peoples. ⁴May he give to you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your offspring with you, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien—land that God gave to Abraham.’ ⁵Thus Isaac sent Jacob away; and he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother.