Genesis 30:31-43

New King James Version

³¹ So he said, “What shall I give you?”

And Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this thing for me, I will again feed and keep your flocks: ³² Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from there all the speckled and spotted sheep, and all the brown ones among the lambs, and the spotted and speckled among the goats; and ^(A)these shall be my wages. ³³ So my ^(B)righteousness will answer for me in time to come, when the subject of my wages comes before you: every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the lambs, will be considered stolen, if it is with me.”

³⁴ And Laban said, “Oh, that it were according to your word!” ³⁵ So he removed that day the male goats that were ^(C)speckled and spotted, all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had some white in it, and all the brown ones among the lambs, and gave them into the hand of his sons. ³⁶ Then he put three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks.

³⁷ Now ^(D)Jacob took for himself rods of green poplar and of the almond and chestnut trees, peeled white strips in them, and exposed the white which was in the rods. ³⁸ And the rods which he had peeled, he set before the flocks in the gutters, in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink, so that they should conceive when they came to drink. ³⁹ So the flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks brought forth streaked, speckled, and spotted. ⁴⁰ Then Jacob separated the lambs, and made the flocks face toward the streaked and all the brown in the flock of Laban; but he put his own flocks by themselves and did not put them with Laban’s flock.

⁴¹ And it came to pass, whenever the stronger livestock conceived, that Jacob placed the rods before the eyes of the livestock in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. ⁴² But when the flocks were feeble, he did not put them in; so the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s. ⁴³ Thus the man ^(E)became exceedingly prosperous, and ^(F)had large flocks, female and male servants, and camels and donkeys.