On the day that Isaac, the father of Jacob and Esau, died Esau’s sons heard that Isaac had given the birthright to his younger son Jacob. They became very angry.

They quarreled with their father: ‘Why is it that when you are the older and Jacob the younger your father gave Jacob the birthright and neglected you’?

He said to them: ‘Because I sold my right of the first-born to Jacob in exchange for a little lentil broth. The day my father sent me to hunt and trap and to bring (something) to him so that he could eat (it) and bless me, he came in a crafty way and brought in food and drink to my father. My father blessed him and put me under his control.

Now our father has made us — me and him — swear that we will not aim at what is bad, the one against his brother, and that we will continue in (a state of) mutual love and peace, each with his brother, so that we should not corrupt our behavior’.

They said to him: ‘We will not listen to you by making peace with him because our strength is greater than his strength, and we are stronger than he is. We will go against him, kill him, and destroy his sons. If you do not go with us, we will harm you, too.

Now listen to us; let us send to Aram, Philistia, Moab, and Ammon; and let us choose for ourselves select men who are brave in battle. Then let us go against him, fight with him, and uproot him from the earth before he gains strength’.

Their father said to them: ‘Do not go and do not make war with him so that you may not fall before him’.

They said to him: ‘Is this not the very way you have acted from your youth until today. You are putting your neck beneath his yoke. We will not listen to what you are saying’.

So they sent to Aram and to their father’s friend Aduram. Together with them they hired for themselves 1000 fighting men, select warriors.

There came to them from Moab and from the Ammonites 1000 select men who were hired; from the Philistines 1000 select warriors; from Edom and the Horites 1000 select fighters, and from the Kittim strong warriors.

They said to their father: ‘Go out; lead them. Otherwise, we will kill you’.

He was filled with anger and wrath when he saw that his sons were forcing him to go in front in order to lead them to his brother Jacob.

But afterwards he remembered all the bad things that were hidden in his mind against his brother Jacob, and he did not remember the oath that he had sworn to his father and mother not to aim at anything bad against his brother Jacob throughout his entire lifetime.

During all of this, Jacob was unaware that they were coming to him for battle. He, for his part, was mourning for his wife Leah until they approached him near the tower with 4000 warriors, select fighting men.

The people of Hebron sent word to him: ‘Your brother has just now come against you to fight you with 4000 men who have swords buckled on and are carrying shields and weapons’. They told him because they loved Jacob more than Esau, since Jacob was a more generous and kind man than Esau.

But Jacob did not believe (it) until they came near the tower.

Then he closed the gates of the tower, stood on the top, and spoke with his brother Esau. He said: ‘It is a fine consolation that you have come to give me for my wife who has died. Is this the oath that you swore to your father and your mother two times before he died? You have violated the oath and were condemned in the hour when you swore (it) to your father’.

Then Esau said in reply to him: ‘Neither mankind nor animals have a true oath which they, once they have sworn, have sworn (it as valid) forever. Everyday they aim at what is bad for one another and at each one killing his enemy and opponent.

You will hate me and my sons forever. There is no observing of brotherly ties with you.

Listen to what I have to say to you. If a pig changes its hide and makes its bristles as limp as wool; and if horns like deer’s and sheep’s horns emerge from its head, then I will observe brotherly ties with you. Since we were separated at our mother’s breasts, you have not been a brother to me.

If wolves make peace with lambs so that they do not eat them or injure them; and if they have resolved to treat them well, then there will be peace in my mind for you.

If the lion becomes the friend of a bull, and if it is harnessed together with it in a yoke and plows with it and makes peace with it, then I will make peace with you.

If the raven turns white like the raza-bird, then know that I love you and will make peace with you. (As for) you — be uprooted and may your children be uprooted. There is to be no peace for you’.

When Jacob saw that he was adversely inclined toward him from his mind and his entire self so that he could kill him and (that) he had come bounding along like a boar that comes upon the spear which pierces it and kills it but does not pull back from it,

then he told his own (people) and his servants to attack him and all his companions.