And Jacob continued on his way, and angels of God met him. And when he saw them, he said, “This must be Gods army” so he named that place Mahanayim, The Army.
Then Jacob sent messengers ahead to his brother Esau in Seir. And he instructed them to give this message to Esau: “Sir, your brother Jacob humbly greets you and says, ‘I have been staying with Laban and have been delayed until now, while I acquired oxen, donkeys, sheep, male and female slaves. And I am informing you of this, sir, in the hope that I may gain your favor.’ ”
And when the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We spoke to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.”
And Jacob was very frightened. And he prayed, “God of my fathers, save me, I beg you, from my brother Esau; do not let him come and kill me, and the mothers and children too.”
And he spent the night there, and in the morning he set aside a part of his herds as a gift for his brother Esau: two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty milch camels with their calves, forty cows and ten young bulls, twenty she-donkeys and ten he-donkeys. And he put a slave in charge of each herd and said to them, “Go on ahead, and leave a space between the herds.” And he said to the slave in front, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks who your master is and where you are going and who owns these animals you are herding, you say, ‘Sir, they are Jacob’s; he humbly sends them to you as a gift, sir, and he himself is coming behind us.’ “ And he gave the same instructions to the second and the third slave and to all the others who were driving the herds, telling each to say the same thing to Esau when they met him. (He was thinking, “First I will make atonement to him with the gift I have sent on ahead; then afterward, when I face him, perhaps he will forgive me.”) So the gift went on ahead of him, while he spent the night in Mahanayim.
And during the night he got up and took his two wives, the two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. And after he had taken them across the stream, he sent all his herds across.