Genesis 29-31

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

29 Then Jacob went [briskly and cheerfully] on his way [400 miles] and came to the land of the people of the East.

² As he looked, he saw a well in the field; and behold, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it, for out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone on the well’s mouth was a big one,

³ And when all the flocks were gathered there, [the shepherds] would roll the stone from the well’s mouth, water the sheep, and replace the stone on the well’s mouth.

⁴ And Jacob said to them, My brothers, where are you from? And they said, We are from Haran.

⁵ [Jacob] said to them, Do you know Laban the grandson of Nahor? And they said, We know him.

⁶ He said to them, Is it well with him? And they said, He is doing well; and behold, here comes his daughter Rachel with [his] sheep!

⁷ He said, The sun is still high; it is a long time yet before the flocks need be gathered [in their folds]. [Why not] water the sheep and return them to their pasture?

⁸ But they said, We cannot until all the flocks are gathered together; then [the shepherds] roll the stone from the well’s mouth and we water the sheep.

⁹ While he was still talking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she shepherded them.

¹⁰ When Jacob saw Rachel daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his uncle, Jacob went near and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth and watered the flock of his uncle Laban.

¹¹ Then Jacob kissed Rachel and he wept aloud.

¹² Jacob told Rachel he was her father’s relative, Rebekah’s son; and she ran and told her father.

¹³ When Laban heard of the arrival of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced and kissed him and brought him to his house. And [Jacob] told Laban all these things.

¹⁴ Then Laban said to him, Surely you are my bone and my flesh. And [Jacob] stayed with him a month.

¹⁵ Then Laban said to Jacob, Just because you are my relative, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?

¹⁶ Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the elder was Leah and the name of the younger was Rachel.

¹⁷ Leah’s eyes were weak and dull looking, but Rachel was beautiful and attractive.

¹⁸ And Jacob loved Rachel; so he said, I will work for you for seven years for Rachel your younger daughter.

¹⁹ And Laban said, It is better that I give her to you than to another man. Stay and live with me.

²⁰ And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.

²¹ Finally, Jacob said to Laban, Give me my wife, for my time is completed, so that I may take her to me.

²² And Laban gathered together all the men of the place and made a feast [with drinking].

²³ But when night came, he took Leah his daughter and brought her to [Jacob], who had intercourse with her.

²⁴ And Laban gave Zilpah his maid to his daughter Leah to be her maid.

²⁵ But in the morning [Jacob saw his wife, and] behold, it was Leah! And he said to Laban, What is this you have done to me? Did I not work for you [all those seven years] for Rachel? Why then have you deceived and cheated and thrown me down [like this]?

²⁶ And Laban said, It is not permitted in our country to give the younger [in marriage] before the elder.

²⁷ Finish the [wedding feast] week [for Leah]; then we will give you [Rachel] also, and you shall work for me yet seven more years in return.

²⁸ So Jacob complied and fulfilled [Leah’s] week; then [Laban] gave him Rachel his daughter as his wife.

²⁹ (And Laban gave Bilhah his maid to Rachel his daughter to be her maid.)

³⁰ And Jacob lived with Rachel also as his wife, and he loved Rachel more than Leah and served [Laban] another seven years [for her].

³¹ And when the Lord saw that Leah was despised, He made her able to bear children, but Rachel was barren.

³² And Leah became pregnant and bore a son and named him Reuben [See, a son!]; for she said, Because the Lord has seen my humiliation and affliction; now my husband will love me.

³³ [Leah] became pregnant again and bore a son and said, Because the Lord heard that I am despised, He has given me this son also; and she named him Simeon [God hears].

³⁴ And she became pregnant again and bore a son and said, Now this time will my husband be a companion to me, for I have borne him three sons. Therefore he was named Levi [companion].

³⁵ Again she conceived and bore a son, and she said, Now will I praise the Lord! So she called his name Judah [praise]; then [for a time] she ceased bearing.

30 When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister, and said to Jacob, Give me children, or else I will die!

² And Jacob became very angry with Rachel and he said, Am I in God’s stead, Who has denied you children?

³ And she said, See here, take my maid Bilhah and have intercourse with her; and [when the baby comes] she shall deliver it upon my knees, that I by her may also have children.

⁴ And she gave him Bilhah her maid as a [secondary] wife, and Jacob had intercourse with her.

⁵ And Bilhah became pregnant and bore Jacob a son.

⁶ And Rachel said, God has judged and vindicated me, and has heard my plea and has given me a son; so she named him Dan [judged].

⁷ And Bilhah, Rachel’s maid, conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.

⁸ And Rachel said, With mighty wrestlings [in prayer to God] I have struggled with my sister and have prevailed; so she named him [this second son Bilhah bore] Naphtali [struggled].

⁹ When Leah saw that she had ceased to bear, she gave Zilpah her maid to Jacob as a [secondary] wife.

¹⁰ And Zilpah, Leah’s maid, bore Jacob a son.

¹¹ Then Leah said, Victory and good fortune have come; and she named him Gad [fortune].

¹² Zilpah, Leah’s maid, bore Jacob [her] second son.

¹³ And Leah said, I am happy, for women will call me blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied); and she named him Asher [happy].

¹⁴ Now Reuben went at the time of wheat harvest and found some mandrakes (love apples) in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray you, some of your son’s mandrakes.

¹⁵ But [Leah] answered, Is it not enough that you have taken my husband without your taking away my son’s ^[a]mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Jacob shall sleep with you tonight [in exchange] for your son’s mandrakes.

¹⁶ And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him and said, You must sleep with me [tonight], for I have certainly paid your hire with my son’s mandrakes. So he slept with her that night.

¹⁷ And God heeded Leah’s [prayer], and she conceived and bore Jacob [her] fifth son.

¹⁸ Leah said, God has given me my hire, because I have given my maid to my husband; and she called his name Issachar [hired].

¹⁹ And Leah became pregnant again and bore Jacob [her] sixth son.

²⁰ Then Leah said, God has endowed me with a good marriage gift [for my husband]; now will he dwell with me [and regard me as his wife in reality], because I have borne him six sons; and she named him Zebulun [dwelling].

²¹ Afterwards she bore a daughter and called her Dinah.

²² Then God remembered Rachel and answered her pleading and made it possible for her to have children.

²³ And [now for the first time] she became pregnant and bore a son; and she said, God has taken away my reproach, disgrace, and humiliation.

²⁴ And she called his name Joseph [may he add] and said, May the Lord add to me another son.

²⁵ When Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, Send me away, that I may go to my own place and country.

²⁶ Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, and let me go; for you know the work which I have done for you.

²⁷ And Laban said to him, If I have found favor in your sight, I pray you [do not go]; for I have learned by experience and from the omens in divination that the Lord has favored me with blessings on your account.

²⁸ He said, State your salary and I will give it.

²⁹ Jacob answered him, You know how I have served you, and how your possessions, your cattle and sheep and goats, have fared with me.

³⁰ For you had little before I came, and it has increased and multiplied abundantly; and the Lord has favored you with blessings wherever I turned. But now, when shall I provide for my own house also?

³¹ [Laban] said, What shall I give you? And Jacob said, You shall not give me anything, if you will do this one thing for me [of which I am about to tell you], and I will again feed and take care of your flock.

³² Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted animal and every black one among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats; and such shall be my wages.

³³ So later when the matter of my wages is brought before you, my fair dealing will be evident and answer for me. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the sheep, if found with me, shall be counted as stolen.

³⁴ And Laban said, Good; let it be done as you say.

³⁵ But that same day [Laban] removed the he-goats that were streaked and spotted and all the she-goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every black lamb, and put them in charge of his sons.

³⁶ And he set [a distance of] three days’ journey between himself and Jacob; and Jacob was then left in care of the rest of Laban’s flock.

³⁷ But Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane trees and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white in the rods.

³⁸ Then he set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred and conceived when they came to drink,

³⁹ The flocks bred and conceived in sight of the rods and brought forth lambs and kids streaked, speckled, and spotted.

⁴⁰ Jacob separated the lambs, and [as he had done with the peeled rods] he also set the faces of the flocks toward the streaked and all the dark in the [new] flock of Laban; and he put his own droves by themselves and did not let them breed with Laban’s flock.

⁴¹ And whenever the stronger animals were breeding, Jacob laid the rods in the watering troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed and conceive among the rods.

⁴² But when the sheep and goats were feeble, he omitted putting the rods there; so the feebler animals were Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s.

⁴³ Thus the man increased and became exceedingly rich, and had many sheep and goats, and maidservants, menservants, camels, and donkeys.

31 Jacob heard Laban’s sons complaining, Jacob has taken away all that was our father’s; he has acquired all this wealth and honor from what belonged to our father.

² And Jacob noticed that Laban looked at him less favorably than before.

³ Then the Lord said to Jacob, Return to the land of your fathers and to your people, and I will be with you.

⁴ So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field to his flock,

⁵ And he said to them, I see how your father looks at me, that he is not [friendly] toward me as before; but the God of my father has been with me.

⁶ You know that I have served your father with all my might and power.

⁷ But your father has deceived me and changed my wages ten times, but God did not allow him to hurt me.

⁸ If he said, The speckled shall be your wages, then all the flock bore speckled; and if he said, The streaked shall be your hire, then all the flock bore streaked.

⁹ Thus God has taken away the flocks of your father and given them to me.

¹⁰ And I had a ^[b]dream at the time the flock conceived. I looked up and saw that the rams which mated with the she-goats were streaked, speckled, and spotted.

¹¹ And the ^[c]Angel of God said to me in the dream, Jacob. And I said, Here am I.

¹² And He said, Look up and see, all the rams which mate with the flock are streaked, speckled, and mottled; for I have seen all that Laban does to you.

¹³ I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar and where you vowed a vow to Me. Now arise, get out from this land and return to your native land.

¹⁴ And Rachel and Leah answered him, Is there any portion or inheritance for us in our father’s house?

¹⁵ Are we not counted by him as strangers? For he sold us and has also quite devoured our money [the price you paid for us].

¹⁶ For all the riches which God has taken from our father are ours and our children’s. Now then, whatever God has said to you, do it.

¹⁷ Then Jacob rose up and set his sons and his wives upon the camels;

¹⁸ And he drove away all his livestock and all his gain which he had gotten, the livestock he had obtained and accumulated in Padan-aram, to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan.

¹⁹ Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep [possibly to the feast of sheepshearing], and Rachel stole her father’s household gods.

²⁰ And Jacob outwitted Laban the Syrian [Aramean] in that he did not tell him that he [intended] to flee and slip away secretly.

²¹ So he fled with all that he had, and arose and crossed the river [Euphrates] and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.

²² But on the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled.

²³ So he took his kinsmen with him and pursued after [Jacob] for seven days, and they overtook him in the hill country of Gilead.

²⁴ But God came to Laban the Syrian [Aramean] in a dream by night and said to him, Be careful that you do not speak from good to bad to Jacob [peaceably, then violently].

²⁵ Then Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent on the hill, and Laban coming with his kinsmen pitched [his tents] on the same hill of Gilead.

²⁶ And Laban said to Jacob, What do you mean stealing away and leaving like this without my knowing it, and carrying off my daughters as if captives of the sword?

²⁷ Why did you flee secretly and cheat me and did not tell me, so that I might have sent you away with joy and gladness and with singing, with tambourine and lyre?

²⁸ And why did you not permit me to kiss my sons [grandchildren] and my daughters good-bye? Now you have done foolishly [in behaving like this].

²⁹ It is in my power to do you harm; but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, Be careful that you do not speak from good to bad to Jacob [peaceably, then violently].

³⁰ And now you felt you must go because you were homesick for your father’s house, but why did you steal my [household] ^[d]gods?

³¹ Jacob answered Laban, Because I was afraid; for I thought, Suppose you would take your daughters from me by force.

³² The one with whom you find those gods of yours, let him not live. Here before our kinsmen [search my possessions and] take whatever you find that belongs to you. For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen [the images].

³³ So Laban went into Jacob’s tent and into Leah’s tent and the tent of the two maids, but he did not find them. Then he went from Leah’s tent into Rachel’s tent.

³⁴ Now Rachel had taken the images (gods) and put them in the camel’s saddle and sat on them. Laban searched and felt through all the tent, but did not find them.

³⁵ And [Rachel] said to her father, Do not be displeased, my lord, that I cannot rise up before you, for the period of women is upon me and I am unwell. And he searched, but did not find the gods.

³⁶ Then Jacob became angry and reproached and argued with Laban. And Jacob said to Laban, What is my fault? What is my sin, that you so hotly pursued me?

³⁷ Although you have searched and felt through all my household possessions, what have you found of all your household goods? Put it here before my brethren and yours, that they may judge and decide between us.

³⁸ These twenty years I have been with you; your ewes and your she-goats have not lost their young, and the rams of your flock have not been eaten by me.

³⁹ I did not bring you [the carcasses of the animals] torn by wild beasts; I bore the loss of it; you required of me [to make good] all that was stolen, whether it occurred by day or by night.

⁴⁰ This was [my lot]; by day the heat consumed me and by night the cold, and I could not sleep.

⁴¹ I have been twenty years in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks; and you have changed my wages ten times.

⁴² And if the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Dread [lest he should fall] and Fear [lest he offend] of Isaac, had not been with me, surely you would have sent me away now empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and humiliation and the [wearying] labor of my hands and 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 to these my daughters or to their children whom they have borne?

⁴⁴ So come now, let us make a covenant or league, you and I, and let it be for a witness between you and me.

⁴⁵ So Jacob set up a stone for a pillar or monument.

⁴⁶ And Jacob said to his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones and made a heap, and they ate [together] there upon the heap.^(A)

⁴⁷ Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha [witness heap, in Aramaic], but Jacob called it Galeed [^[e]witness heap, in Hebrew.]

⁴⁸ Laban said, This heap is a witness today between you and me. Therefore it was named Galeed.

⁴⁹ And [the pillar or monument was called] Mizpah [watchpost], for he [Laban] said, May the Lord watch between you and me when we are absent and hidden one from another.

⁵⁰ If you should afflict, humiliate, or lower [divorce] my daughters, or if you should take other wives beside my daughters, although no man is with us [to witness], see (remember), God is witness between you and me.

⁵¹ And Laban said to Jacob, See this heap and this pillar, which I have set up between you and me.

⁵² This heap is a witness and this pillar is a witness, that I will not pass by this heap to you, and that you will not pass by this heap and this pillar to me, for harm.

⁵³ The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, and the god [the object of worship] of their father [Terah, an idolator], judge between us. But Jacob swore [only] by [the one true God] the Dread and Fear of his father Isaac.^(B)

⁵⁴ Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and called his brethren to eat food; and they ate food and lingered all night on the mountain.

⁵⁵ And early in the morning Laban rose up and kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and pronounced a blessing [asking God’s favor] on them. Then Laban departed and returned to his home.