FIRST READING Genesis 32:9-13
Reader: Our reading today is from Genesis, the 32nd chapter.
All: Speak Lord, for we are listening.
9 And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my
father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your
kindred, and I will do you good,’ 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the
steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your
servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have
become two companies. 11 Deliver me, please, from the hand of my
brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and
kill us all, the mothers with the children. 12 Yet you have said, ‘I will
surely do you good and make your offspring as the sand of the sea,
which cannot be counted because of their number.’ ”13 So he spent that
night there, and from what he had with him he took a present for his
brother Esau,
Reader: Word of God. Word of life.
All: Thanks be to God.
SECOND READING Genesis 32:22-30
Jacob Wrestles at Peniel
22 The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids,
and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took
them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he
had. 24 Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him
on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled
with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But
Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27 So he said to
him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then the man said,
“You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven
with God and with humans and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked
him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my
name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,
saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.”
Reader: Word of God. Word of life.
All: Thanks be to God.