Esau

The first one came out red, covered with hair like a fur coat; so they named him Esau.

After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. And Isaac was sixty years old when the twins were born.

When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home.

Because Isaac had a taste for wild game, he loved Esau; but Rebekah loved Jacob.

One day, while Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the field and was famished.

“Look,” said Esau, “I am about to die, so what good is a birthright to me?”

Then Jacob gave some bread and lentil stew to Esau, who ate and drank and then got up and went away. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

When Esau was forty years old, he took as his wives Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite.

When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.” “Here I am,” Esau replied.

Now Rebekah was listening to what Isaac told his son Esau. So when Esau went into the field to hunt game and bring it back,

Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Behold, I overheard your father saying to your brother Esau,

Jacob answered his mother Rebekah, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, but I am smooth-skinned.

And Rebekah took the finest clothes in the house that belonged to her older son Esau, and she put them on her younger son Jacob.

Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may bless me.”

Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come closer so I can touch you, my son. Are you really my son Esau, or not?”

So Jacob came close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”

Isaac did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he blessed him.

Again he asked, “Are you really my son Esau?” And he replied, “I am.”

As soon as Isaac had finished blessing him and Jacob had left his father’s presence, his brother Esau returned from the hunt.

But his father Isaac replied, “Who are you?” “I am Esau, your firstborn son,” he answered.

When Esau heard his father’s words, he let out a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me too, O my father!”

But Isaac answered Esau: “Look, I have made him your master and given him all his relatives as servants; I have sustained him with grain and new wine. What is left that I can do for you, my son?”

Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, O my father!” Then Esau wept aloud.

Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. And Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”

When the words of her older son Esau were relayed to Rebekah, she sent for her younger son Jacob and told him, “Look, your brother Esau is consoling himself by plotting to kill you.

So Isaac sent Jacob to Paddan-aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau.

Now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan-aram to take a wife there, commanding him, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman,”

And seeing that his father Isaac disapproved of the Canaanite women,

Esau went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Abraham’s son Ishmael, in addition to the wives he already had.

He instructed them, “You are to say to my master Esau, ‘Your servant Jacob says: I have been staying with Laban and have remained there until now.

When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you—he and four hundred men with him.”

He thought, “If Esau comes and attacks one camp, then the other camp can escape.”

Please deliver me from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid that he may come and attack me and the mothers and children with me.

Jacob spent the night there, and from what he had brought with him, he selected a gift for his brother Esau:

He instructed the one in the lead, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘To whom do you belong, where are you going, and whose animals are these before you?’

then you are to say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift, sent to my lord Esau. And behold, Jacob is behind us.’”

He also instructed the second, the third, and all those following behind the herds: “When you meet Esau, you are to say the same thing to him.

Now Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming toward him with four hundred men. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two maidservants.

Esau, however, ran to him and embraced him, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. And they both wept.

“I already have plenty, my brother,” Esau replied. “Keep what belongs to you.”

“Let me leave some of my people with you,” Esau said. But Jacob replied, “Why do that? Let me find favor in the sight of my lord.”

So that day Esau started on his way back to Seir,

Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and settle there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.”

Then he breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, old and full of years. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Esau took his wives from the daughters of Canaan: Adah daughter of Elon the Hittite, Oholibamah daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite,

And Adah bore Eliphaz to Esau, Basemath gave birth to Reuel,

and Oholibamah gave birth to Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. These were the sons of Esau, who were born to him in the land of Canaan.

Later, Esau took his wives and sons and daughters and all the people of his household, along with his livestock, all his other animals, and all the property he had acquired in Canaan, and he moved to a land far away from his brother Jacob.

These are the names of Esau’s sons: Eliphaz son of Esau’s wife Adah, and Reuel son of Esau’s wife Basemath.

Additionally, Timna, a concubine of Esau’s son Eliphaz, gave birth to Amalek. These are the grandsons of Esau’s wife Adah.

These are the sons of Reuel: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah. They are the grandsons of Esau’s wife Basemath.

These are the sons of Esau’s wife Oholibamah (daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon) whom she bore to Esau: Jeush, Jalam, and Korah.

These are the chiefs among the sons of Esau. The sons of Eliphaz the firstborn of Esau: Chiefs Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz,

These are the sons of Esau’s wife Oholibamah: Chiefs Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. They are the chiefs descended from Esau’s wife Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah.

These are the names of Esau’s chiefs, according to their families and regions, by their names: Chiefs Timna, Alvah, Jetheth,

Abraham was the father of Isaac. The sons of Isaac: Esau and Israel.

The sons of Esau: Eliphaz, Reuel, Jeush, Jalam, and Korah.

So it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning the future.

See to it that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his birthright.