Jacob's family

30 Rachel now knew that she could not give birth to any children for Jacob. So she became jealous of her sister. Rachel said to Jacob, ‘Please give me children. If not, I will die.’^{[a] 2} Jacob became angry with Rachel. He said, ‘Am I God? God has stopped you from giving birth to children!’ ³ Rachel said, ‘Take my servant Bilhah and have sex with her. Then she can have children on my behalf. Through her, I can have a family.’^[b]

⁴ So Rachel gave her servant Bilhah to Jacob to become his wife. ⁵ Bilhah became pregnant and she gave birth to a son for Jacob. ⁶ Rachel said, ‘God has shown that I am right. He has listened to me and he has given a son to me.’ Because of this, she called the boy Dan. ⁷ Rachel's servant Bilhah became pregnant again. She gave birth to another son for Jacob. ⁸ Rachel said, ‘I have fought with my sister and I have won.’ She called this son Naphtali.

⁹ Leah saw that she had stopped having children. So she gave her servant Zilpah to Jacob as a wife. ¹⁰ Zilpah became pregnant and she gave birth to a son for Jacob. ¹¹ Leah said, ‘This is very good.’ She called the boy Gad. ¹² Leah's servant Zilpah gave Jacob another son. ¹³ Leah said, ‘I am very happy! Women will call me happy.’ So she called this boy Asher.

¹⁴ It was the time for the harvest of wheat. Reuben went out and he found some mandrake plants in a field. He took them to his mother, Leah. Rachel said to Leah, ‘Please give me some of the mandrakes that your son gave to you.’^{[c] 15} But Leah said to Rachel, ‘You took my husband from me. That was bad enough! Now you want to take my son's mandrakes too!’ Rachel said, ‘OK. If you give me some of your son's mandrakes, Jacob can sleep with you tonight.’

¹⁶ In the evening, Jacob came in from the fields. Leah went out to meet him. She said, ‘You must sleep with me tonight. I have paid for you with my son's mandrakes.’ So Jacob slept with Leah that night. ¹⁷ God listened to Leah and she became pregnant again. She gave birth to a fifth son for Jacob. ¹⁸ Leah said, ‘God has helped me because I gave my servant to Jacob as a wife.’ She called her son Issachar.

¹⁹ Leah became pregnant again and she gave Jacob a sixth son. ²⁰ Leah said, ‘God has given me this valuable gift. Now my husband will respect me because I have given him six sons.’ She called this son Zebulun.

²¹ After some time, Leah became pregnant again. She gave birth to a daughter. She called her daughter Dinah.

²² Then God decided to help Rachel. He listened to her and he let her become pregnant. ²³ She became pregnant and she gave birth to a son. Rachel said, ‘I am not ashamed any longer, because God has given me a son.’ ²⁴ Rachel called her son Joseph. She said, ‘I pray that the Lord will give me another son.’

Jacob's sheep

²⁵ After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob spoke to Laban. He said, ‘Let me go away now. I want to go home to my own land. ²⁶ Let me take my wives and my children with me. I have worked for you so that I could have them. You must let me leave, because you know how much I have worked for you.’

²⁷ Laban said to Jacob, ‘If you are happy with me then please stay here. I know that the Lord has blessed me because you are here with me. I have used magic to know that.’ ²⁸ Laban also said to Jacob, ‘Tell me how much I should pay you for your work. I will pay whatever you want.’

²⁹ Jacob replied, ‘You know how much I have worked for you. You know that you have many more animals now, because I have taken care of them. ³⁰ Before I came, you had only a few sheep and goats. Now you have many more valuable things. Wherever I have worked for you, the Lord has blessed you. But now I want to work to help my own family. I must do that soon.’

³¹ Laban asked, ‘What must I give to you?’ Jacob replied, ‘You do not need to give me anything. But just do one thing for me. Then I will still take care of your animals. I will make sure that nothing bad happens to them. ³² Do this: Let me go among all your animals today. Let me remove any animal that has a mark on it or that has more than one colour on its skin. I will also take any black lambs. That is what you will give me for my work. ³³ In the future, this will show that I am honest. You can check on my animals whenever you want to. I will only have sheep or goats that have marks on their skin, or black lambs. If I have any other animals, you may call me a robber.’ ³⁴ Laban said, ‘I agree to this. It will be as you have said.’

³⁵ On that same day, Laban went to his animals. He quickly removed all the goats that had marks, both male and female goats. He also removed all the black lambs. He gave these animals to his sons to take care of them.^{[d] 36} He sent those animals a long way away. It would take Jacob three days to reach them. While this was happening, Jacob was taking care of Laban's other animals.

³⁷ Jacob took branches that he had cut from trees. He took them from poplar trees, almond trees and plane trees. He cut white lines on the branches. He stripped off the outside part of the wood to show white lines. ³⁸ Then he put the branches in the place where there were big bowls of water for the animals to drink. They were in front of the animals when they came to drink. The animals could see the branches when it was the right time for them to have sex together. ³⁹ When they had sex in front of the branches, they gave birth to babies that had skin with marks. ⁴⁰ Jacob kept these lambs separate from Laban's animals. He took the rest of Laban's female animals to join with the animals that had marks or were black. In that way he got more animals that would belong to him. He kept them separate from Laban's animals.

⁴¹ Jacob waited until the stronger female animals were ready to have sex. Then he put the special branches in front of them, near the big bowls of water. Then these animals would see the branches when they had sex together. ⁴² But if the female animals were weak, he did not put the branches in front of them when they had sex. As a result, the weak animals would belong to Laban, but Jacob would keep the strong animals.

⁴³ In this way, Jacob became very rich. Many sheep and goats belonged to him. He also had female servants and male servants, as well as camels and donkeys.