² so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children.^(A) Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”^(B)

Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

¹¹ Then the elders and all the people at the gate^(A) said, “We are witnesses.^(B) May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah,^(C) who together built up the family of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah^(D) and be famous in Bethlehem.^(E)

⁴ If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.

²² Then God remembered Rachel;^(A) he listened to her^(B) and enabled her to conceive.^(C)

⁹ When Leah^(A) saw that she had stopped having children,^(B) she took her servant Zilpah^(C) and gave her to Jacob as a wife.^{(D) 10} Leah’s servant Zilpah^(E) bore Jacob a son.

² Jacob became angry with her and said, “Am I in the place of God,^(A) who has kept you from having children?”^(B)

³ Then she said, “Here is Bilhah,^(C) my servant.^(D) Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and I too can build a family through her.”^(E)

⁴ So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife.^(F) Jacob slept with her,^(G)

²¹ Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless.^(A) The Lord answered his prayer,^(B) and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.

¹⁸ for the Lord had kept all the women in Abimelek’s household from conceiving because of Abraham’s wife Sarah.^(A)