Genesis 31:22-42

Modern English Version

Laban Pursues Jacob

²² Laban was told on the third day that Jacob had fled. ²³ He took his kinsmen with him and pursued him for seven days until he caught up with him in the mountains of Gilead. ²⁴ But God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night and said to him, “Take care that you speak to Jacob neither good nor bad.”

²⁵ Then Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent on the mountain, and Laban with his kinsmen pitched in the mountains of Gilead. ²⁶ Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done that you have stolen away without my knowing and carried away my daughters like captives taken with the sword? ²⁷ Why did you flee away secretly and sneak away from me and not tell me? I would have sent you away with joy and with songs, with the tambourine and harp. ²⁸ And why did you not permit me to kiss my sons and my daughters farewell? You have acted foolishly in so doing. ²⁹ It is in my power to do you harm, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Take care that you not speak to Jacob either good or bad.’ ³⁰ Now you surely have gone away because you longed desperately after your father’s house, yet why have you stolen my gods?”

³¹ Then Jacob answered and said to Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force. ³² But anyone with whom you find your gods, let him not live. In the presence of our kinsmen, point out what I have that is yours and take it.” For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.

³³ So Laban went into Jacob’s tent and into Leah’s tent and into the two female servants’ tents, but he did not find them. Then he went out of Leah’s tent and entered into Rachel’s tent. ³⁴ Now Rachel had taken the household idols and put them in the camel’s saddle and sat on them. Laban searched the entire tent, but could not find them.

³⁵ She said to her father, “Let not my lord be displeased that I cannot rise before you, for the manner of women is on me.” So he searched, but he did not find the household idols.

³⁶ Then Jacob became angry and berated Laban. And Jacob asked Laban, “What is my offense? What is my sin that you have so hotly pursued after me? ³⁷ You have searched all my things, and yet what have you found of all your household things? Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen, so that they may judge between us both.

³⁸ “This twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried their young, and the male goats of your flock I have not eaten. ³⁹ That which was torn by beasts I did not bring to you. I bore the loss of it. You required it from my hand whether it was stolen by day or stolen by night. ⁴⁰ It was like this with me: In the day the heat consumed me and the frost by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. ⁴¹ I have been twenty years in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. ⁴² If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, surely you would have sent me away empty now. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night.”