Genesis 29-33

Evangelical Heritage Version

Jacob and Laban

29 Then Jacob continued on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east.^[a]

² He looked around and noticed a well in the field, and he saw three flocks of sheep lying there beside it. (That well was used to water the flocks. There was a large stone over the mouth of the well. ³ All the flocks would gather there. Then the shepherds would roll the stone away from the mouth of the well and water the sheep. Then they would put the stone back in its place over the mouth of the well.)

⁴ Jacob said to the men waiting there, “My brothers, where are you from?”

They said, “We are from Haran.”

⁵ He said to them, “Do you know Laban, the grandson of Nahor?”

They said, “We know him.”

⁶ He said to them, “Is he doing well?”

They said, “He is. Look, there is his daughter Rachel, coming with the sheep.”

⁷ He said, “Look, it is still the middle of the day. It is not time to gather the livestock together. Water the sheep and go pasture them.”

⁸ They said, “We cannot, until all the flocks are gathered together, 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 arrived with her father’s sheep because she took care of them. ¹⁰ When Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother’s brother, Jacob went up, rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well, and watered the flock of Laban, his mother’s brother. ¹¹ Jacob kissed Rachel and wept loudly. ¹² Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s relative and that he was Rebekah’s son. She ran and told her father.

¹³ When Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he ran to meet Jacob. He embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Jacob repeated all these things to Laban. ¹⁴ Laban said to him, “Certainly you are my own flesh and blood.”^[b]

Jacob lived with him for a month. ¹⁵ Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my relative, is that any reason you should serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?”

¹⁶ Laban had two daughters. The name of the older one was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. ¹⁷ Leah had attractive eyes,^[c] but Rachel had a beautiful face and figure. ¹⁸ Jacob loved Rachel. He said, “I will serve you seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter.”

¹⁹ Laban said, “It is better for me to give her to you than to give her to another man. Stay with me.”

²⁰ Jacob served seven years for Rachel. They seemed to him like a few days, because of the love he had for her.

²¹ Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my time of service is finished, so that I may go to her.”

²² Laban gathered together all the local people and made a feast. ²³ When evening had arrived, he took Leah his daughter and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob went to her. ²⁴ (Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah as her maid.) ²⁵ When morning came, Jacob realized it was Leah. So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Didn’t I serve you for Rachel? Why have you deceived me?”

²⁶ Laban said, “That is not the way we do it here. We do not give the younger before the firstborn. ²⁷ Fulfill the marriage week for this one, and we will give you the other one too—for seven more years of service.”

²⁸ So that is what Jacob did. When he fulfilled the marriage week, Laban gave him Rachel his daughter as his wife. ²⁹ (Laban gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her maid.) ³⁰ Jacob also went to Rachel, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. He served Laban seven more years.

Jacob’s Family

³¹ The Lord saw that Leah was not loved, and he allowed her to conceive, but Rachel had no children. ³² Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son, and she named him Reuben,^[d] because she had said, “The Lord has looked at my misery. So now my husband will love me.”

³³ She conceived again and gave birth to a son and said, “Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also.” So she named him Simeon.^[e]

³⁴ She conceived again and gave birth to a son. She said, “Now this time my husband will be attached to me, because I have given birth to three sons for him.” That is why he was named Levi.^[f]

³⁵ She conceived again and gave birth to a son. She said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” So she named him Judah.^[g] Then she stopped having children.

30 When Rachel saw that she was bearing no children for Jacob, Rachel was jealous of her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I will die.”

² Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you fruit from your womb?”

³ She said, “Here is my maid Bilhah. Go to her, so that she may bear a child for me, and my family will be built up through her.” ⁴ So she gave her servant girl Bilhah to Jacob as a wife, and he went to her. ⁵ Bilhah conceived and gave birth to a son for Jacob. ⁶ Rachel said, “God has judged in my favor. He has heard my voice and has given me a son.” Therefore she named him Dan.^[h]

⁷ Bilhah, Rachel’s servant girl, conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. ⁸ Rachel said, “I have had a desperate struggle with my sister, and I have won.” So she named him Naphtali.^[i]

⁹ When Leah saw that she was no longer bearing sons, she took her servant girl Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. ¹⁰ Zilpah, Leah’s servant girl, bore Jacob a son. ¹¹ Leah said, “How fortunate!” So she named him Gad.^[j]

¹² Zilpah, Leah’s servant girl, bore a second son for Jacob. ¹³ Leah said, “I am blessed, for women will call me blessed.” She named him Asher.^[k]

¹⁴ At the time of the wheat harvest Reuben went out and found mandrakes^[l] 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 She said to her, “Isn’t it bad enough that you have taken away my husband? Do you want to take away my son’s mandrakes as well?”

Rachel said, “He will sleep with you tonight 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 come to me, because I have 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 Leah said, “God has given me the wages I deserve, because I gave my servant girl to my husband.” So she named him Issachar.^[m]

¹⁹ Leah conceived again and bore a sixth son to Jacob. ²⁰ Leah said, “God has given me a great reward. Now my husband will treat me with honor, because I have borne six sons for him.” So she named him Zebulun.^[n]

²¹ Afterward, she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah.

²² God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb. ²³ She conceived, bore a son, and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.” ²⁴ She named him Joseph^[o] and said, “May the Lord add another son to me.”

Jacob Versus Laban

²⁵ After Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go home to my own place in my own country. ²⁶ Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me go, because you know how much I have served you.”

²⁷ Laban said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, stay here, for I have learned by divination^[p] that the Lord has blessed me because of you.” ²⁸ So he said, “Set your wages for me, and I will pay them.”

²⁹ Jacob said to him, “You know how well I have served you, and how your livestock have fared under my care. ³⁰ For before I came, you had very little, and it has been multiplied many times over. The Lord has blessed you wherever I set foot. Now isn’t it time for me to provide for my own household as well?”

³¹ Laban asked, “What shall I give you?”

Jacob said, “You do not have to give me anything. But if you will do this thing for me, I will continue to take your flock to pasture and watch over it: ³² I will pass through all your flocks today and take all the speckled and spotted sheep, every dark brown sheep among the lambs, and the spotted and speckled goats. These will be my wages. ³³ This is how I will be able to prove my honesty whenever you demand an accounting of my wages: Any goats that are not spotted or speckled, and any lambs that are not dark brown that are found with me will be treated as stolen.”

³⁴ Laban said, “Very well. We will do what you have said.” ³⁵ But that day Laban removed all the male goats that were streaked and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had any white on it, and all the dark brown sheep, and handed them over to his sons. ³⁶ Then he separated himself from Jacob by a three days’ journey, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban’s flocks.

³⁷ Jacob took fresh branches from poplar, almond, and plane trees. He peeled stripes on them so that the white inside the branches was visible. ³⁸ He put the branches that he had peeled into the gutters of the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink, so the flocks would see them. They conceived when they came to drink. ³⁹ The flocks conceived in front of the branches, and the flocks produced streaked, speckled, and spotted animals. ⁴⁰ Jacob separated the lambs, and he made the flocks face toward the streaked animals and all the black animals in the flock of Laban, and he kept his own herds separate and did not put them into Laban’s flock. ⁴¹ And whenever the stronger animals in the flock were in heat, Jacob laid the branches in the gutters where the flocks could see them, so that they would conceive while looking at the branches. ⁴² But when the weak animals in the flock were in heat, he did not put the branches in. So the weaker animals were Laban’s, and the stronger were Jacob’s. ⁴³ The man became much wealthier and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.

31 Jacob heard that Laban’s sons were saying, “Jacob has taken everything from our father. He has acquired all his wealth from things that belonged to our father.” ² From the look on Laban’s face Jacob realized that his attitude toward him was not what it had been before. ³ The Lord said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”

⁴ Jacob sent for Rachel and Leah and told them to come to the field where his flock was. ⁵ He said to them, “I see the look on your father’s face, and it is not favorable toward me as it was before, but the God of my father has been with me. ⁶ You know that I have served your father with all of my strength. ⁷ Your father has cheated me by changing my wages ten times, but God did not allow him to hurt me. ⁸ If he said, ‘The speckled animals will be your wages,’ then all the flock gave birth to speckled young. If he said, ‘The streaked animals will be your wages,’ then all the flock gave birth to streaked young. ⁹ In this way God has taken away your father’s livestock and given them to me. ¹⁰ Once during mating season, in a dream I watched and saw male goats that were streaked, speckled, and spotted^[q] mating with the flock. ¹¹ The Angel of God called out to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I answered, ‘I am here.’ ¹² He said, ‘Look! All the male goats mating with the flock are streaked, speckled, and spotted, because I have seen everything that Laban has been doing to you. ¹³ I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a memorial stone, and where you made a vow to me. Now get going, get out of this land, and return to the land where you were born.’”

¹⁴ Rachel and Leah answered him, “Do we still have any share of the inheritance in our father’s house? ¹⁵ Isn’t he treating us like foreigners? First he sold us. Now he has used up almost all the money he received for us. ¹⁶ All the riches that God has taken away from our father belong to us and our children. Now do whatever God has told you to do.”

¹⁷ Then Jacob got ready to go. He placed his sons and his wives on camels. ¹⁸ He took with him all his livestock and all his possessions that he had accumulated, including the livestock that he had acquired in Paddan Aram. He set out to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan.

¹⁹ Now when Laban had gone off to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father’s household gods.^[r]

²⁰ Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was running away. ²¹ So he fled with all that he had. He set out, crossed over the Euphrates River, and headed toward the hill country^[s] of Gilead.

²² On the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled. ²³ He took his relatives with him and pursued him for seven days. He overtook him in the hill country of Gilead. ²⁴ But God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream during the night and said to him, “Be careful that you do not say anything to Jacob either good or bad.”

²⁵ Laban caught up with Jacob. Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban along with his relatives also set up camp in the hill country of Gilead. ²⁶ Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done? Why have you deceived me and carried away my daughters like prisoners of war? ²⁷ Why did you flee secretly and steal from me? Why didn’t you tell me, so that I could have sent you away with a celebration and with songs, with drums and with lyres? ²⁸ Why didn’t you allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters?^[t] By doing this you have acted foolishly. ²⁹ I have it in my power to hurt you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night and said, ‘Be careful that you do not say anything to Jacob either good or bad.’ ³⁰ But even if you were so eager to leave because of your strong desire to return to your father’s house, why have you stolen my gods?”

³¹ Jacob answered Laban, “I was afraid, because I thought that you might take your daughters away from me by force. ³² But anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live. In the presence of our relatives, identify anything I have that belongs to you, and take it.” (Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the household gods.)

³³ So Laban went into Jacob’s tent, into Leah’s tent, and into the tent of the two female servants, but he did not find the gods. After he had left Leah’s tent, he entered Rachel’s tent. ³⁴ Rachel had taken the household gods and put them into her camel’s saddle, and she was sitting on them. Laban felt all around the tent, but he did not find them. ³⁵ Rachel said to her father, “Do not be angry, my lord, because I cannot stand up in your presence. I’m having my period.” He searched, but he did not find the gods.

³⁶ Jacob became angry and argued with Laban. Jacob responded to Laban, “What is my crime? What is my sin that set you off in hot pursuit after me? ³⁷ Now that you have rummaged through all my belongings, what have you found there that came from your house? Set it out here in front of my relatives and your relatives, so that they can settle the case between the two of us. ³⁸ These twenty years that I have been with you, your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried their young, and I have not eaten rams from your flocks. ³⁹ I did not bring to you those that were torn up by wild animals. I bore the loss myself. You made me pay for all the losses, whether they were stolen by day or stolen by night. ⁴⁰ I was the one out there, consumed by the scorching heat of the day and by the frost at night, and sleep fled from my eyes. ⁴¹ These twenty years I put up with this in your house: I served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for a share of your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. ⁴² Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the God revered^[u] by Isaac, had been with me, you certainly would have now sent me away empty-handed. But God saw the oppression I suffered and the labor of my hands, and he rebuked you last night.”

⁴³ Laban answered Jacob, “These daughters are my daughters. These children are my children. These flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine, but what can I do today about these daughters of mine or about the children to whom they have given birth? ⁴⁴ Now come, let us make a covenant,^[v] you and I, and let it stand as a witness between me and you.”^[w]

⁴⁵ So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a memorial stone. ⁴⁶ Jacob said to his relatives, “Gather stones.” They collected stones and piled them up. They ate there beside the pile of stones. ⁴⁷ Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha,^[x] but Jacob called it Galeed.^{[y] 48} Laban said, “This pile of stones is a witness between me and you this day.” So it was named Galeed ⁴⁹ and Mizpah,^[z] for he also said, “May the Lord watch between me and you, when we are absent one from another. ⁵⁰ If you mistreat my daughters, or if you take any wives in addition to my daughters, even if no one else sees it, understand that God is a witness between me and you.”

⁵¹ Laban said to Jacob, “See this pile of stones and see the memorial stone that I have set between me and you. ⁵² May this pile be a witness, and may the memorial stone be a witness that I will not cross over beyond this pile to you, and that you will not cross over beyond this pile and this memorial stone to harm me. ⁵³ May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.”

Then Jacob swore by the God revered by his father Isaac. ⁵⁴ Jacob offered a sacrifice there in the hill country and invited his relatives to eat bread with him. They ate bread and stayed all night in the hill country. ⁵⁵ Early in the morning Laban got up, kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them. Laban departed and returned to his place.

Jacob Meets Esau

32 Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.^{[aa] 2} When he saw them, Jacob said, “This is God’s army.” He named that place Mahanaim.^[ab]

³ Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to Esau, his brother, to the land of Seir, the region of Edom. ⁴ He gave them a command. “Tell my lord, Esau, ‘This is what your servant Jacob says: I have lived as an alien with Laban until very recently. ⁵ I have cattle, donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants. I have sent this message to inform my lord, so that I may find favor in your sight.’”

⁶ The messengers returned to Jacob and reported, “We came to your brother Esau. Now he is coming to meet you, and he has four hundred men with him.”

⁷ So Jacob was terrified and very distressed. He divided the people who were with him, as well as the flocks, and the herds, and the camels, into two camps.^{[ac] 8} He said, “If Esau comes to one camp and strikes it, then the other camp will escape.” ⁹ Jacob said, “God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord, who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will do good for you,’ ¹⁰ I am not worthy of even a bit of all the mercy and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for I crossed over this Jordan with just my staff, and now I have grown into two camps. ¹¹ Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid that he will come and strike me and the mothers, as well as the children. ¹² You said, ‘I will surely do good for you and make your descendants like the grains of sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because there are so many.’”

¹³ Jacob spent that night there and selected a gift for Esau his brother from the possessions he had with him: ¹⁴ two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, ¹⁵ thirty milk camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys with ten foals. ¹⁶ He handed them over to his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, “Cross over in front of me, and keep some space between each herd and the next one.” ¹⁷ He commanded the one in front, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks, ‘Whose people are you? Where are you going? Whose herds are these in front of you?’ ¹⁸ then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. It is a gift sent to you, my lord Esau. Look, he is right behind us.’” ¹⁹ He commanded the second group, and the third, and all those who followed the herds, “This is how you shall speak to Esau when you meet him. ²⁰ You shall say, ‘What’s more, look, your servant Jacob is right behind us.’” Jacob said, “I will win his favor with the gift that I have sent ahead of me, and after that I will see his face, and perhaps he will accept me.”

²¹ So the gift was sent over ahead of him, but he himself spent that night in the camp.

²² He got up that night and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of the Jabbok. ²³ He took them and sent them across the stream, and he also sent his possessions across. ²⁴ Jacob was left alone, and he wrestled with a man there until daybreak. ²⁵ When the man saw that he could not defeat him, he touched the socket of his thigh, and the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated as he wrestled. ²⁶ The man said, “Let me go. It’s daybreak.”

Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

²⁷ Then he said to him, “What is your name?”

He said, “Jacob.”

²⁸ Then he said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have fought with God and with men, and you have won.”

²⁹ Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.”

He said, “Why do you ask what my name is?” Then he blessed him there.

³⁰ Jacob named the place Peniel,^[ad] because he said, “I have seen God face-to-face, and my life has been spared.” ³¹ The sun rose as he crossed over at Peniel, and he was limping because of his thigh. ³² For that reason, to this day the people of Israel do not eat the tendon of the hip that is on the socket of the thigh, because God touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh on the tendon of the hip.

33 Jacob looked up, and there was Esau coming with four hundred men. Jacob divided the children into groups with Leah and Rachel and with the two maids. ² He put the maids and their children in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph at the end. ³ He himself crossed over the stream ahead of the others and bowed to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.

⁴ Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, hugged him around the neck, and kissed him. They both wept. ⁵ Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children and asked, “Who are these people with you?”

Jacob said, “The children whom God has graciously given your servant.” ⁶ Then the maids came forward with their children, and they bowed low. ⁷ Leah and her children also came forward and bowed low. After them, Joseph came forward with Rachel, and they bowed low.

⁸ Esau said, “What did you mean by this whole camp that I met?”

Jacob said, “To gain favor in the sight of my lord.”

⁹ Esau said, “I have enough, my brother. Keep what is yours.”

¹⁰ Jacob said, “No, if I have now found favor in your sight, then please accept the gift from my hand, because when I saw your face, it was like seeing the face of God, now that you have accepted me. ¹¹ Please accept the gift that I brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have everything I need.” He urged him, and he accepted it.

¹² Esau said, “Let us get going on our journey, and I will lead the way for you.”

¹³ Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are still young, and that my flocks and herds are nursing their young, and if the herdsmen drive them too hard for even one day, all the flocks will die. ¹⁴ Please let my lord go ahead of his servant, and I will follow slowly, at the right pace for the livestock and the right pace for the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.”

¹⁵ Esau said, “Please let me leave some of my people with you.”

But he said, “Why? Just let me find favor in the sight of my lord.”

¹⁶ So Esau set out that day on his way back to Seir. ¹⁷ Jacob traveled to Succoth, built a house for himself, and made shelters for his livestock. That is why that place is called Succoth.^[ae]

¹⁸ When he returned from Paddan Aram, Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, and he camped in front of the city. ¹⁹ He bought the piece of land where he pitched his tent from the descendants of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for one hundred pieces of silver.^{[af] 20} He erected an altar there and called it El Elohe Israel.^[ag]