Psalm 81

For the choir director: A psalm of Asaph, to be accompanied by a stringed instrument.^[a]

Jacob Arrives at Paddan-Aram

29 Then Jacob hurried on, finally arriving in the land of the east. ² He saw a well in the distance. Three flocks of sheep and goats lay in an open field beside it, waiting to be watered. But a heavy stone covered the mouth of the well.

³ It was the custom there to wait for all the flocks to arrive before removing the stone and watering the animals. Afterward the stone would be placed back over the mouth of the well. ⁴ Jacob went over to the shepherds and asked, “Where are you from, my friends?”

“We are from Haran,” they answered.

⁵ “Do you know a man there named Laban, the grandson of Nahor?” he asked.

“Yes, we do,” they replied.

⁶ “Is he doing well?” Jacob asked.

“Yes, he’s well,” they answered. “Look, here comes his daughter Rachel with the flock now.”

⁷ Jacob said, “Look, it’s still broad daylight—too early to round up the animals. Why don’t you water the sheep and goats so they can get back out to pasture?”

⁸ “We can’t water the animals until all the flocks have arrived,” they replied. “Then the shepherds move the stone from the mouth of the well, and we water all the sheep and goats.”

⁹ Jacob was still talking with them when Rachel arrived with her father’s flock, for she was a shepherd. ¹⁰ And because Rachel was his cousin—the daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother—and because the sheep and goats belonged to his uncle Laban, Jacob went over to the well and moved the stone from its mouth and watered his uncle’s flock. ¹¹ Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and he wept aloud. ¹² He explained to Rachel that he was her cousin on her father’s side—the son of her aunt Rebekah. So Rachel quickly ran and told her father, Laban.

¹³ As soon as Laban heard that his nephew Jacob had arrived, he ran out to meet him. He embraced and kissed him and brought him home. When Jacob had told him his story, ¹⁴ Laban exclaimed, “You really are my own flesh and blood!”

Jacob Marries Leah and Rachel

After Jacob had stayed with Laban for about a month,

Lessons from Israel’s Idolatry

10 I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters,^[a] about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. ² In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. ³ All of them ate the same spiritual food, ⁴ and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ.