So when Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him, and she said, “You must come to me. For I’ve actually hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he lay with her that very night.

Moreover, God heard Leah, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a fifth son for Jacob.

Then Leah became pregnant again and gave birth to a sixth son for Jacob.

Jacob Outwits Laban

Now it was after Rachel gave birth to Joseph that Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away so that I can go to my place and to my land.

Then he said, “What can I pay you?” Jacob said, “You don’t need to pay me anything. If you will do this one thing for me, I will shepherd your flock again and watch it:

Then he put a three-day’s journey between them and Jacob, while Jacob was shepherding Laban’s remaining flocks.

But Jacob took fresh white poplar, almond, and plane tree branches, peeled away white stripped sections on them, exposing the white of the branches.

Now Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped ones as well as all the dark-colored ones among Laban’s flocks. Then he set aside the herds for himself and did not put them with Laban’s flocks.

Whenever the strong flocks mated, Jacob put the branches in the watering troughs before the eyes of the flocks, to have them mate near the branches.

But when the flocks were sickly, he did not put the branches down—so the sickly ones became Laban’s and the stronger ones became Jacob’s.

Jacob Secretly Leaves Laban

Now Jacob heard the words Laban’s sons were saying, “Jacob has taken everything that belongs to our father, and from what belongs to our father he has made all these riches.”

Then Jacob saw Laban’s face, and he noticed that his expression wasn’t the same as it was just a day or two before.

Then Adonai said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”

So Jacob sent and called for Rachel and Leah to come to the field, to his flock.

Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Hineni.’

Then Jacob got up and put his children and wives on camels.

while Jacob stole the heart from Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was fleeing.

Laban Confronts Jacob and Makes Covenant

When Laban was told on the third day after Jacob had fled,

But God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream at night and said to him, “Watch yourself—lest you say anything to Jacob, good or bad.”

So Laban caught up to Jacob. (Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, so Laban and his brothers pitched their tents in the hill country of Gilead as well).

Then Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done, that you’ve stolen my heart and have driven my daughters away like captives of the sword?

It is in the power of my hand to do evil with you, but yesterday the God of your fathers spoke to me, saying, ‘Watch yourself—lest you say anything to Jacob, good or bad.’

In response, Jacob said to Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I thought, ‘Suppose you snatch your daughters away from me.’

Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live. In front of our relatives, identify whatever is yours that is with me, and take it back.” (But Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.)

So Laban went into Jacob’s tent, and Leah’s tent and into the tent of the two maids, but he found nothing. Then he went out of Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s tent.