New American Bible, Revised Edition

Genesis 32:17-31 New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE)

17. He put these animals in the care of his servants, in separate herds, and he told the servants, “Go on ahead of me, but keep some space between the herds.”

18. He ordered the servant in the lead, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? To whom do these animals ahead of you belong?’

19. tell him, ‘To your servant Jacob, but they have been sent as a gift to my lord Esau. Jacob himself is right behind us.’”

20. He also ordered the second servant and the third and all the others who followed behind the herds: “Thus and so you shall say to Esau, when you reach him;

21. and also tell him, ‘Your servant Jacob is right behind us.’” For Jacob reasoned, “If I first appease him with a gift that precedes me, then later, when I face him, perhaps he will forgive me.”

22. So the gifts went on ahead of him, while he stayed that night in the camp.

23. That night, however, Jacob arose, took his two wives, with the two maidservants and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.

24. After he got them and brought them across the wadi and brought over what belonged to him,

25. Jacob was left there alone. Then a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.

26. When the man saw that he could not prevail over him, he struck Jacob’s hip at its socket, so that Jacob’s socket was dislocated as he wrestled with him.

27. The man then said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”

28. “What is your name?” the man asked. He answered, “Jacob.”

29. Then the man said, “You shall no longer be named Jacob, but Israel, because you have contended with divine and human beings and have prevailed.”

30. Jacob then asked him, “Please tell me your name.” He answered, “Why do you ask for my name?” With that, he blessed him.

31. Jacob named the place Peniel, “because I have seen God face to face,” he said, “yet my life has been spared.”