Genesis 27:29–40

²⁹Let 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

³⁰As 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 savory 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.”^{* 32}His father Isaac said to him, “Who are you?” He answered, “I am your firstborn son, Esau.”^{* 33}Then 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!”^{* 34}When 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!”^{* 35}But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.” ³⁶Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob?^j 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?”^{* 37}Isaac 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?”^{* 38}Esau said to his father, “Have you only one blessing, father? Bless me, me also, father!” And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.^*

³⁹Then 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.^*

⁴⁰By your sword you shall live,

and you shall serve your brother,

but when you break loose,^k

you shall break his yoke from your neck.”^*