Genesis 29-31

New American Standard Bible

Jacob Meets Rachel

29 Then Jacob ^[a]set out on his journey, and went to the land of ^(A)the ^[b]people of the east. ² He looked, and ^[c]saw ^(B)a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it, because they watered the flocks from that well. Now the stone on the mouth of the well was large. ³ When all the flocks were gathered there, they would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep. Then they would put the stone back in its place on the mouth of the well.

⁴ Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where are you from?” And they said, “We are from ^(C)Haran.” ⁵ So he said to them, “Do you know Laban the ^(D)son of Nahor?” And they said, “We know him.” ⁶ And he said to them, “Is it well with him?” And they said, “It is well, and here is his daughter ^(E)Rachel coming with the sheep.” ⁷ Then he said, “Look, it is still high day; it is not time for the livestock to be gathered. Water the sheep, and go, pasture them.” ⁸ But they said, “We cannot, until all the flocks are gathered, and they roll the stone from the mouth of the well; then we water the sheep.”

⁹ While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess. ¹⁰ When Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of his mother’s brother Laban, and the sheep of his mother’s brother Laban, Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well, and watered the flock of his mother’s brother Laban. ¹¹ Then Jacob ^(F)kissed Rachel, and raised his voice and wept. ¹² Jacob told Rachel that he was a ^(G)relative of her father and that he was Rebekah’s son, and ^(H)she ran and told her father.

¹³ So when ^(I)Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and ^(J)embraced him and kissed him, and brought him to his house. Then he told Laban all these things. ¹⁴ And Laban said to him, “You certainly are ^(K)my bone and my flesh.” And he stayed with him a month.

¹⁵ Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall ^(L)your wages be?” ¹⁶ Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. ¹⁷ And Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was ^(M)beautiful in figure and appearance. ¹⁸ Now Jacob ^(N)loved Rachel, so he said, “^(O)I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” ¹⁹ Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than to give her to another man; stay with me.” ²⁰ So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him like only a few days ^(P)because of his love for her.

Laban’s Treachery

²¹ Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my ^[d]time is completed, that I may ^(Q)have relations with her.” ²² So Laban gathered all the people of the place and held a feast. ²³ Now in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to him; and Jacob had relations with her. ²⁴ Laban also gave his female slave Zilpah to his daughter Leah as a slave. ²⁵ So it came about in the morning that, behold, it was Leah! And he said to Laban, “^(R)What is this that you have done to me? Was it not for Rachel that I served with you? Why then have you ^(S)deceived me?” ²⁶ But Laban said, “It is not ^[e]the practice in our place to ^[f]marry off the younger before the firstborn. ²⁷ Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also for the service which ^(T)you shall serve with me, for another seven years.” ²⁸ Jacob did so and completed her week, and he gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife. ²⁹ Laban also gave his female slave Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her slave. ³⁰ So Jacob had relations with Rachel also, and indeed ^(U)he loved Rachel more than Leah, and he served with ^[g]Laban for ^(V)another seven years.

³¹ Now the Lord saw that Leah was ^[h]unloved, and He opened her womb, but Rachel was unable to have children. ³² Leah conceived and gave birth to a son, and named him ^[i]Reuben, for she said, “Because the Lord has ^[j](W)seen my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.” ³³ Then she conceived again and gave birth to a son, and said, “^(X)Because the Lord has ^[k]heard that I am ^[l]unloved, He has therefore given me this son also.” So she named him Simeon. ³⁴ And she conceived again and gave birth to a son, and said, “Now this time my husband will become ^[m]attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore he was named ^(Y)Levi. ³⁵ And she conceived again and gave birth to a son, and said, “This time I will ^[n]praise the Lord.” Therefore she named him ^[o](Z)Judah. Then she stopped having children.

The Sons of Jacob

30 Now when Rachel saw that ^(AA)she had not borne Jacob any children, ^[p]she became jealous of her sister; and she said to Jacob, “^(AB)Give me children, or else I am going to die.” ² Then Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has ^(AC)withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” ³ Then she said, “^(AD)Here is my female slave Bilhah: have relations with her that she may ^(AE)give birth ^[q]on my knees, so that ^[r](AF)by her I too may obtain a child.” ⁴ So ^(AG)she gave him her slave Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob had relations with her. ⁵ Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. ⁶ Then Rachel said, “God has ^[s](AH)vindicated me, and has indeed heard my voice and has given me a son.” Therefore she named him ^[t]Dan. ⁷ And Rachel’s slave Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. ⁸ So Rachel said, “With ^[u]mighty wrestling I have ^[v]wrestled with my sister, and I have indeed prevailed.” And she named him Naphtali.

⁹ When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her slave Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. ¹⁰ And Leah’s slave Zilpah bore Jacob a son. ¹¹ Then Leah said, “^[w]How fortunate!” So she named him ^[x]Gad. ¹² And Leah’s slave Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. ¹³ Then Leah said, “^[y]Happy am I! For women ^(AI)will call me happy.” So she named him ^[z]Asher.

¹⁴ Now in the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found ^(AJ)mandrake fruits in the field, and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.” ¹⁵ But she said to her, “Is it a small matter for you to take my husband? And would you take my son’s mandrakes also?” So Rachel said, “Therefore he may sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.” ¹⁶ When Jacob came in from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, “You must have relations with me, for I have indeed hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he slept with her that night. ¹⁷ God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. ¹⁸ Then Leah said, “God has given me my ^[aa]reward, because I gave my slave to my husband.” So she named him Issachar. ¹⁹ And Leah conceived again and bore a sixth son to Jacob. ²⁰ Then Leah said, “God has endowed me with a good gift; finally my husband ^[ab]will acknowledge me as his wife, because I have borne him six sons.” So she named him Zebulun. ²¹ Afterward she gave birth to a daughter, and named her Dinah.

²² Then ^(AK)God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and ^(AL)opened her womb. ²³ So she conceived and gave birth to a son, and said, “God has ^(AM)taken away my disgrace.” ²⁴ And she named him Joseph, saying, “^(AN)May the Lord ^[ac]give me another son.”

Jacob Prospers

²⁵ Now it came about, when Rachel had given birth to Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, “^(AO)Send me away, so that I may go to my own place and to my own country. ²⁶ Give me my wives and my children ^(AP)for whom I have served you, and let me go; for you yourself know my service which I have ^[ad]rendered you.” ²⁷ But Laban said to him, “If ^[ae]it pleases you at all, stay with me; I have determined by divination ^(AQ)that the Lord has blessed me on your account.” ²⁸ He ^[af]continued, “^(AR)Name me your wages, and I will give them.” ²⁹ But Jacob said to him, “^(AS)You yourself know how I have served you and how your livestock have ^[ag]fared with me. ³⁰ For you had little before ^[ah]I came, and it has ^[ai]increased to a multitude, and the Lord has blessed you ^[aj]wherever I turned. But now, when shall I provide for my own household also?” ³¹ So he said, “What shall I give you?” And Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this one thing for me, I will again pasture and keep your flock: ³² let me pass through your entire flock today, removing from there every ^(AT)speckled or spotted sheep and every black sheep among the lambs, and the spotted or speckled among the goats; and those shall be my wages. ³³ So my ^[ak]honesty will answer for me later, when you come concerning my ^[al]wages. Every one that is not speckled or spotted among the goats, or black among the lambs, if found with me, will be considered stolen.” ³⁴ Laban said, “^[am]Good, let it be according to your word.” ³⁵ So he removed on that day the striped or spotted male goats, and all the speckled or spotted female goats, every one with white on it, and all the black ones among the sheep, and put them in the ^[an]care of his sons. ³⁶ And he put a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks.

³⁷ Then Jacob ^[ao]took fresh rods of poplar, almond, and plane trees, and peeled white stripes in them, exposing the white that was ^[ap]in the rods. ³⁸ He set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the drinking troughs, that is, in the watering channels where the flocks came to drink; and they mated when they came to drink. ³⁹ So the flocks mated by the rods, and the flocks delivered striped, speckled, and spotted offspring. ⁴⁰ Then Jacob separated the lambs, and ^[aq]made the flocks face toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban; and he put his own herds apart, and did not put them with Laban’s flock. ⁴¹ Moreover, whenever the stronger of the flock were mating, Jacob would place the rods in the sight of the flock in the drinking troughs, so that they would mate by the rods; ⁴² but when the flock was sickly, he did not put them in; so the sickly were Laban’s, and the stronger were Jacob’s. ⁴³ So ^(AU)the man ^[ar]became exceedingly prosperous, and had large flocks, and female and male servants, and camels and donkeys.

Jacob Leaves Secretly for Canaan

31 Now ^[as]Jacob heard the words of Laban’s sons, saying, “Jacob has taken away all that was our father’s, and from what belonged to our father he has made all this ^[at]wealth.” ² And Jacob saw the ^[au]attitude of Laban, and behold, it was not friendly toward him as it had been before. ³ Then the Lord said to Jacob, “^(AV)Return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and ^(AW)I will be with you.” ⁴ So Jacob sent word and called Rachel and Leah to his flock in the field, ⁵ and said to them, “^(AX)I see your father’s ^[av]attitude, that it is not friendly toward me as it was before, but ^(AY)the God of my father has been with me. ^6 (AZ)You know that I have served your father with all my strength. ⁷ Yet your father has ^(BA)cheated me and ^(BB)changed my wages ten times; however, ^(BC)God did not allow him to do me harm. ⁸ If ^(BD)he said this: ‘The speckled shall be your wages,’ then all the flock delivered speckled; and if he said this: ‘The striped shall be your wages,’ then all the flock delivered striped. ⁹ So God has ^(BE)taken away your father’s livestock and given them to me. ¹⁰ And it came about at the time when the flock was breeding that I raised my eyes and saw in a dream—and behold—the male goats that were ^[aw]mating were striped, speckled, or mottled. ¹¹ Then ^(BF)the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob’; and I said, ‘Here I am.’ ¹² He said, ‘Now raise your eyes and see that all the male goats that are ^[ax]mating are striped, speckled, or mottled; for ^(BG)I have seen everything that Laban has been doing to you. ¹³ I am ^(BH)the God of Bethel, where you ^(BI)anointed a memorial stone, where you made a vow to Me; now arise, ^[ay]leave this land, and ^(BJ)return to the land of your birth.’” ¹⁴ Rachel and Leah said to him, “Do we still have any share or inheritance in our father’s house? ¹⁵ Are we not regarded by him as foreigners? For ^(BK)he has sold us, and has also ^[az]entirely consumed our ^[ba]purchase price. ¹⁶ Surely all the wealth which God has taken away from our father belongs to us and our children; now then, do whatever God has told you.”

¹⁷ Then Jacob stood up and put his children and his wives on camels; ¹⁸ and he drove away all his livestock and all his property which he had acquired, the livestock he possessed which he had acquired in Paddan-aram, ^(BL)to go to the land of Canaan to his father Isaac. ¹⁹ Laban had gone to shear his flock, and Rachel stole the ^[bb](BM)household idols that were her father’s. ²⁰ And Jacob ^[bc]deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was fleeing. ²¹ So he fled with all that he had; and he got up and crossed the Euphrates River, and set ^[bd]out for the hill country of ^(BN)Gilead.

Laban Pursues Jacob

²² When Laban was informed on the third day that Jacob had fled, ²³ he took his kinsmen with him and pursued him a distance of seven days’ journey, and he overtook him in the hill country of Gilead. ²⁴ However, ^(BO)God came to Laban the Aramean in a ^(BP)dream of the night and said to him, “^[be](BQ)Be careful that you do not speak to Jacob either good or bad.”

²⁵ And Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his kinsmen camped in the hill country of Gilead. ²⁶ Then Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done ^[bf]by deceiving me and carrying away my daughters like captives of the sword? ²⁷ Why did you flee secretly and ^[bg]deceive me, and did not tell me, so that I might have sent you away with joy and with songs, with ^(BR)tambourine and with ^(BS)lyre; ²⁸ and did not allow me ^(BT)to kiss my ^[bh]grandchildren and my daughters? Now you have done foolishly. ²⁹ It is in ^[bi]my power to do you harm, but ^(BU)the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘^[bj](BV)Be careful not to speak either good or bad to Jacob.’ ³⁰ Now you have indeed gone away because you longed greatly for your father’s house; but why did you steal ^(BW)my gods?” ³¹ Then Jacob replied to Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force. ^32 (BX)The one with whom you find your gods shall not live; in the presence of our relatives ^[bk]point out what is yours ^[bl]among my belongings and take it for yourself.” Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.

³³ So Laban went into Jacob’s tent, and into Leah’s tent, and into the tent of the two slave women, but he did not find them. Then he went out of Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s tent. ³⁴ Now Rachel had taken the ^[bm]household idols and put them in the camel’s saddlebag, and she sat on them. So Laban searched through all the tent, but did not find them. ³⁵ And she said to her father, “May my lord not be angry that I cannot ^(BY)stand in your presence, because the ^[bn]way of women is upon me.” So he searched but did not find the ^[bo](BZ)household idols.

³⁶ Then Jacob became angry and argued with Laban; and Jacob said to Laban, “What is my offense? What is my sin that you have hotly pursued me? ³⁷ Though you have searched through all my property, what have you found of all your household property? Set it here in front of my relatives and your relatives, so that they may decide between the two of us. ³⁸ For these twenty years I have been with you; your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten the rams of your flocks. ³⁹ I did not even bring to you that which was torn by wild animals; I took the loss myself. You demanded it of my hand whether stolen by day or stolen by night. ⁴⁰ This is how I was: by day the ^[bp]heat consumed me and the frost by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. ⁴¹ For these twenty years I have been in your house; ^(CA)I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you ^(CB)changed my wages ten times. ⁴² If ^(CC)the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac, had not been for me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. ^(CD)God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, so He ^(CE)rendered judgment last night.”

The Covenant of Mizpah

⁴³ Then Laban replied to Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, the ^[bq]children are my ^[br]grandchildren, ^(CF)the flocks are my flocks, and everything that you see is mine. But what can I do this day to these daughters of mine or to their children to whom they have given birth? ⁴⁴ So now come, let’s ^(CG)make a covenant, ^[bs]you and I, and ^(CH)it shall be a witness between ^[bt]you and me.” ⁴⁵ Then Jacob took ^(CI)a stone and set it up as a memorial stone. ⁴⁶ Jacob said to his relatives, “Gather stones.” So they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap. ⁴⁷ Now Laban ^(CJ)called it ^[bu]Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it ^[bv]Galeed. ⁴⁸ Laban said, “^(CK)This heap is a witness between ^[bw]you and me this day.” Therefore it was named Galeed, ⁴⁹ and ^[bx](CL)Mizpah, for he said, “May the Lord keep watch between ^[by]you and me when we are ^[bz]absent one from the other. ⁵⁰ If you mistreat my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no one is with us, see, ^(CM)God is witness between ^[ca]you and me.” ⁵¹ Laban also said to Jacob, “Behold this heap and behold the memorial stone which I have set between ^[cb]you and me. ⁵² This heap is a witness, and the memorial stone is a witness, that I will not pass by this heap to you for harm, and you will not pass by this heap and this memorial stone to me, for harm. ^53 (CN)The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, ^(CO)judge between us.” So Jacob swore by ^(CP)the fear of his father Isaac. ⁵⁴ Then Jacob ^(CQ)offered a sacrifice on the mountain, and called his relatives to ^[cc]the meal; and they ate ^[cd]the meal and spent the night on the mountain. ^55 [ce]Then early in the morning Laban got up, and ^(CR)kissed his ^[cf]grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them. Then Laban departed and returned to his place.