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.’”
13. Jacob stayed there that night. Then he sent as a gift to his brother Esau
14. two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,
15. thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.
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.”
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?’
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.’”
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.
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.”
21. So the gifts were sent on ahead of him while he spent that night in the camp.