30 When Rachel realized she couldn’t have Jacob’s children, she grew envious of her sister and complained to Jacob.

² Jacob became angry with Rachel.

⁴ So she gave Jacob her servant Bilhah to be another one of his wives, and Jacob slept with her. ⁵ Bilhah conceived and gave birth to Jacob’s son.

So this is why Rachel named her son Dan. ⁷ Rachel’s servant Bilhah soon conceived again and gave birth to a second son for Jacob.

So Rachel named this son Naphtali.

⁹ When it seemed Leah was not going to have any more children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob to be a wife as well. ¹⁰ So Leah’s servant Zilpah gave birth to a son for Jacob.

This is why she named him Gad.

¹² Then Leah’s servant Zilpah gave birth to a second son for Jacob. ¹³ Leah named him Asher to express her joy.

¹⁴ When it came time to harvest the wheat, Reuben went out and found some mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Rachel heard about this and approached her sister.

¹⁶ So when Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him.

So he slept with her that night. ¹⁷ God listened to Leah and showed her His favor, and after many years she again conceived and gave birth to her fifth son for Jacob.

This is why she named her son Issachar.

¹⁹ And God’s favor didn’t stop with him; Leah conceived again and gave birth to a sixth son for Jacob.

This is why she named her sixth son Zebulun. ²¹ And at last after that, she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah.

²² Then God remembered Rachel. He heard her prayer and made her fertile. ²³ She conceived and gave birth to her first son.

²⁴ She decided to name him Joseph.

^25-26 After Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob asked Laban for release.

³⁵ But that day, Laban secretly removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, all the female goats that were speckled and spotted—every one with any white on it at all—and every lamb that was black. He put them under the watch of his sons. ³⁶ Then he set off with his sons and those mottled animals a three-day distance away from Jacob to make sure the flocks would stay separated. Meanwhile Jacob was pasturing the rest of Laban’s flock.

³⁷ But Jacob cut some fresh branches of poplar, almond, and plane trees; and he striped off the bark in streaks exposing the white wood beneath. ³⁸ He set the striped branches in front of the flocks in the troughs—the water troughs, that is—where they came to drink. Since they would mate when they came to drink, ³⁹ the flocks mated in front of the branches and produced young that were striped, speckled, and spotted. ⁴⁰ Jacob separated these newly born lambs from Laban’s flock, and when they mated again he faced Laban’s animals toward the striped and black animals. He kept his own droves separate from Laban’s. This is how he increased his own flock. ⁴¹ Whenever the stronger females of the flock were ready to mate, Jacob laid the striped branches in the troughs right in front of them, so that they would breed among them. ⁴² But when he saw the feebler animals ready to mate, he didn’t lay the rods out so that in the end, the feebler of the animals became Laban’s and the stronger became Jacob’s. ⁴³ In this way, Jacob grew extremely rich, and he ended up with very large flocks, male and female slaves, and camels and donkeys too.