Genesis 30:28-31:21

English Standard Version

^28 (A)Name your wages, and I will give it.” ²⁹ Jacob said to him, ^(B)“You yourself know how I have served you, and how your livestock has fared with me. ³⁰ For you had little before I came, ^(C)and it has increased abundantly, and the Lord has blessed you wherever I turned. But now when shall I ^(D)provide for my own household also?” ³¹ He said, “What shall I give you?” Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it: ³² let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and ^(E)they shall be my wages. ³³ So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen.” ³⁴ Laban said, “Good! Let it be as you have said.” ³⁵ But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in the charge of his sons. ³⁶ And he set a distance of three days' journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban's flock.

³⁷ Then ^(F)Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks. ³⁸ He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the ^(G)watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, ³⁹ the flocks bred in front of the sticks and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. ⁴⁰ And Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban. He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban's flock. ⁴¹ Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks in the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the sticks, ⁴² but for the feebler of the flock he would not lay them there. So the feebler would be Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's. ⁴³ Thus the man ^(H)increased greatly and ^(I)had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.

Jacob Flees from Laban

31 Now Jacob heard that the sons of Laban were saying, “Jacob has taken all that was our father's, and from what was our father's he has gained all this wealth.” ² And Jacob saw ^(J)that Laban did not regard him with favor as before. ³ Then the Lord said to Jacob, ^(K)“Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you.”

⁴ So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah into the field where his flock was ⁵ and said to them, ^(L)“I see that your father does not regard me with favor as he did before. But the God of my father ^(M)has been with me. ^6 (N)You know that I have served your father with all my strength, ⁷ yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ^(O)ten times. But God did not permit him to harm me. ⁸ If he said, ^(P)‘The spotted shall be your wages,’ then all the flock bore spotted; and if he said, ‘The striped shall be your wages,’ then all the flock bore striped. ⁹ Thus God has ^(Q)taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me. ¹⁰ In the breeding season of the flock I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream that the goats that mated with the flock were striped, spotted, and mottled. ¹¹ Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Here I am!’ ¹² And he said, ‘Lift up your eyes and see, all the goats that mate with the flock are striped, spotted, and mottled, for ^(R)I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. ¹³ I am the God of Bethel, ^(S)where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me. Now ^(T)arise, go out from this land and return to the land of your kindred.’” ¹⁴ Then Rachel and Leah answered and said to him, “Is there ^(U)any portion or inheritance left to us in our father's house? ¹⁵ Are we not regarded by him as foreigners? For ^(V)he has sold us, and he has indeed devoured our money. ¹⁶ All the wealth that God has taken away from our father belongs to us and to our children. Now then, whatever God has said to you, do.”

¹⁷ So Jacob arose and set his sons and his wives on camels. ¹⁸ He drove away all his livestock, all his property that he had gained, the livestock in his possession that he had acquired in ^(W)Paddan-aram, to go to the land of Canaan to his father Isaac. ¹⁹ Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole her father's ^(X)household gods. ²⁰ And Jacob tricked^[a] Laban the Aramean, by not telling him that he intended to flee. ²¹ He fled with all that he had and arose and crossed the ^(Y)Euphrates,^[b] and ^(Z)set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.