Luke 14:31-32

14:31 Or what king, going out to confront another king in battle, will not sit down first and determine whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 14:32 If he cannot succeed, he will send a representative while the other is still a long way off and ask for terms of peace.

Genesis 32:3-28

32:3 Jacob sent messengers on ahead to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the region of Edom. 32:4 He commanded them, “This is what you must say to my lord Esau: ‘This is what your servant Jacob says: I have been staying with Laban until now. 32:5 I have oxen, donkeys, sheep, and male and female servants. I have sent this message to inform my lord, so that I may find favor in your sight.’”

32:6 The messengers returned to Jacob and said, “We went to your brother Esau. He is coming to meet you and has four hundred men with him.” 32:7 Jacob was very afraid and upset. So he divided the people who were with him into two camps, as well as the flocks, herds, and camels. 32:8 “If Esau attacks one camp,” he thought, “then the other camp will be able to escape.”

32:9 Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord, you said to me, ‘Return to your land and to your relatives and I will make you prosper.’ 32:10 I am not worthy of all the faithful love you have shown your servant. With only my walking stick I crossed the Jordan, but now I have become two camps. 32:11 Rescue me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, as well as the mothers with their children. 32:12 But you said, ‘I will certainly make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand on the seashore, too numerous to count.’”

32:13 Jacob stayed there that night. Then he sent as a gift to his brother Esau 32:14 two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 32:15 thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. 32:16 He entrusted them to his servants, who divided them into herds. He told his servants, “Pass over before me, and keep some distance between one herd and the next.” 32:17 He instructed the servant leading the first herd, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? Whose herds are you driving?’ 32:18 then you must say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They have been sent as a gift to my lord Esau. In fact Jacob himself is behind us.’”

32:19 He also gave these instructions to the second and third servants, as well as all those who were following the herds, saying, “You must say the same thing to Esau when you meet him. 32:20 You must also say, ‘In fact your servant Jacob is behind us.’” Jacob thought, “I will first appease him by sending a gift ahead of me. After that I will meet him. Perhaps he will accept me.” 32:21 So the gifts were sent on ahead of him while he spent that night in the camp.

32:22 During the night Jacob quickly took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 32:23 He took them and sent them across the stream along with all his possessions. 32:24 So Jacob was left alone. Then a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 32:25 When the man saw that he could not defeat Jacob, he struck the socket of his hip so the socket of Jacob’s hip was dislocated while he wrestled with him.

32:26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” “I will not let you go,” Jacob replied, “unless you bless me.” 32:27 The man asked him, “What is your name?” He answered, “Jacob.” 32:28 “No longer will your name be Jacob,” the man told him, “but Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have prevailed.”

Genesis 32:1

Jacob Wrestles at Peniel

32:1 So Jacob went on his way and the angels of God met him.

Genesis 25:18

25:18 His descendants settled from Havilah to Shur, which runs next to Egypt all the way to Asshur. They settled away from all their relatives.

Job 22:21

22:21 “Reconcile yourself with God,

and be at peace with him;

in this way your prosperity will be good.

Job 23:7

23:7 There an upright person

could present his case before him,

and I would be delivered forever from my judge.

Psalms 32:6

32:6 For this reason every one of your faithful followers should pray to you

while there is a window of opportunity.

Certainly when the surging water rises,

it will not reach them.

Proverbs 6:1-5

Admonitions and Warnings against Dangerous and Destructive Acts

6:1 My child, if you have made a pledge for your neighbor,

and have become a guarantor for a stranger,

6:2 if you have been ensnared by the words you have uttered,

and have been caught by the words you have spoken,

6:3 then, my child, do this in order to deliver yourself,

because you have fallen into your neighbor’s power:

go, humble yourself,

and appeal firmly to your neighbor.

6:4 Permit no sleep to your eyes

or slumber to your eyelids.

6:5 Deliver yourself like a gazelle from a snare,

and like a bird from the trap of the fowler.

Isaiah 55:6

55:6 Seek the Lord while he makes himself available;

call to him while he is nearby!

Isaiah 55:2

55:2 Why pay money for something that will not nourish you?

Why spend your hard-earned money on something that will not satisfy?

Listen carefully to me and eat what is nourishing!

Enjoy fine food!

Colossians 1:2

1:2 to the saints, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you from God our Father!

Hebrews 3:7-13

Exposition of Psalm 95: Hearing God’s Word in Faith

3:7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

“Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks!

3:8 “Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness.

3:9 “There your fathers tested me and tried me, and they saw my works for forty years.

3:10 “Therefore, I became provoked at that generation and said, ‘Their hearts are always wandering and they have not known my ways.’

3:11 “As I swore in my anger, ‘They will never enter my rest!’”

3:12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has an evil, unbelieving heart that forsakes the living God. 3:13 But exhort one another each day, as long as it is called “Today,” that none of you may become hardened by sin’s deception.