Beginning
30 Rachel saw that she was not giving Jacob any children. She became jealous of her sister Leah. So Rachel said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I will die!”
2 Jacob became angry with Rachel and said, “I am not God. He is the one who has caused you to not have children.”
3 Then Rachel said, “You can have my maid Bilhah. Sleep with her, and she will have a child for me.[a] Then I can be a mother through her.”
4 So Rachel gave Bilhah to her husband Jacob. He had sexual relations with Bilhah. 5 She became pregnant and gave birth to a son for Jacob.
6 Rachel said, “God has listened to my prayer. He decided to give me a son.” So she named this son Dan.[b]
7 Bilhah became pregnant again and gave Jacob a second son. 8 Rachel said, “I have fought hard to compete with my sister, and I have won.” So she named that son Naphtali.[c]
9 Leah saw that she could have no more children. So she gave her slave girl Zilpah to Jacob. 10 Then Zilpah had a son. 11 Leah said, “I am lucky.” So she named the son Gad.[d] 12 Zilpah gave birth to another son. 13 Leah said, “I am very happy! Now women will call me happy.” So she named that son Asher.[e]
14 During the wheat harvest Reuben went into the fields and found some special flowers.[f] He brought them to his mother Leah. But Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s flowers.”
15 Leah answered, “You have already taken away my husband. Now you are trying to take away my son’s flowers.”
But Rachel answered, “If you will give me your son’s flowers, you can sleep with Jacob tonight.”
16 Jacob came in from the fields that night. Leah saw him and went out to meet him. She said, “You will sleep with me tonight. I have paid for you with my son’s flowers.” So Jacob slept with Leah that night.
17 Then God allowed Leah to become pregnant again. She gave birth to a fifth son. 18 She said, “God has given me a reward because I gave my slave to my husband.” So she named her son Issachar.[g]
19 Leah became pregnant again and gave birth to a sixth son. 20 She said, “God has given me a fine gift. Now surely Jacob will accept me, because I have given him six sons.” So she named this son Zebulun.[h]
21 Later, Leah gave birth to a daughter. She named her Dinah.
22 Then God heard Rachel’s prayer and made it possible for Rachel to have children. 23 She became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She said, “God has taken away my shame.” 24 Rachel named the son Joseph,[i] saying, “May the Lord give me another son.”
Jacob Tricks Laban
25 After the birth of Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Now let me go back to my own homeland. 26 Give me my wives and my children. I have earned them by working for you. You know that I served you well.”
27 Laban said to him, “Please, let me say something. I know[j] that the Lord has blessed me because of you. 28 Tell me what I should pay you, and I will give it to you.”
29 Jacob answered, “You know that I have worked hard for you. Your flocks have grown and been well while I cared for them. 30 When I came, you had little. Now you have much, much more. Every time I did something for you, the Lord blessed you. Now it is time for me to work for myself—it is time to do things for my family.”
31 Laban asked, “Then what should I give you?”
Jacob answered, “I don’t want you to give me anything! I only want you to let me do this one thing: I will go back and take care of your sheep. 32 But let me go through all your flocks today and take every lamb with spots or stripes. Let me take every black young goat and every female goat with stripes or spots. That will be my pay. 33 In the future you can easily see if I am honest. You can come to look at my flocks. If I have any goat that isn’t spotted or any sheep that isn’t black, you will know that I stole it.”
34 Laban answered, “I agree to that. We will do what you ask.” 35 But that day Laban hid all the male goats that had spots. And he hid all the female goats that had spots on them. He also hid all the black sheep. Laban told his sons to watch these sheep. 36 So the sons took all the spotted animals and led them to another place. They traveled for three days. Jacob stayed and took care of all the animals that were left.
37 Then Jacob cut green branches from poplar and almond trees. He stripped off some of the bark so that the branches had white stripes on them. 38 He put the branches in front of the flocks at the watering places. When the animals came to drink, they also mated in that place. 39 Then when the goats mated in front of the branches, the young that were born were spotted, striped, or black.
40 Jacob separated the spotted and the black animals from the other animals in the flock. He kept his animals separate from Laban’s. 41 Any time the stronger animals in the flock were mating, Jacob put the branches before their eyes. The animals mated near those branches. 42 But when the weaker animals mated, Jacob did not put the branches there. So the young animals born from the weak animals were Laban’s. And the young animals born from the stronger animals were Jacob’s. 43 In this way Jacob became very rich. He had large flocks, many servants, camels, and donkeys.
Time to Leave—Jacob Runs Away
31 One day Jacob heard Laban’s sons talking. They said, “Jacob has taken everything that our father owned. He has become rich—and he has taken all this wealth from our father.” 2 Then Jacob noticed that Laban was not as friendly as he had been in the past. 3 The Lord said to Jacob, “Go back to your own land where your ancestors lived. I will be with you.”
4 So Jacob told Rachel and Leah to meet him in the field where he kept his flocks of sheep and goats. 5 He said to them, “I have noticed that your father is not as friendly with me as he used to be. But the God of my father has been with me. 6 You both know that I have worked as hard as I could for your father. 7 But he cheated me. He has changed my pay ten times. But during all this time, God protected me from all of Laban’s tricks.
8 “At one time Laban said, ‘You can keep all the goats with spots. This will be your pay.’ After he said this, all the animals gave birth to spotted goats, so they were all mine. But then Laban said, ‘I will keep the spotted goats. You can have all the striped goats. That will be your pay.’ After he said this, all the animals gave birth to striped goats. 9 So God has taken the animals away from your father and has given them to me.
10 “I had a dream during the time when the animals were mating. I saw that the only male goats that were mating were the ones with stripes and spots. 11 The angel of God spoke to me in that dream. The angel said, ‘Jacob!’
“I answered, ‘Yes!’
12 “The angel said, ‘Look, only the striped and spotted goats are mating. I am causing this to happen. I have seen all the wrong things Laban has been doing to you. I am doing this so that you can have all the new baby goats. 13 I am the God who came to you at Bethel, and there you made an altar, poured olive oil on it, and made a promise to me. Now I want you to be ready to go back to the country where you were born.’”
14 Rachel and Leah answered Jacob, “Our father has nothing to give us when he dies. 15 He treated us like strangers. He sold us to you, and then he spent all the money that should have been ours. 16 God took all this wealth from our father, and now it belongs to us and our children. So you should do whatever God told you to do.”
17 So Jacob prepared for the trip. He put his children and his wives on camels. 18 Then they began traveling back to the land of Canaan, where his father lived. All the flocks of animals that Jacob owned walked ahead of them. He carried everything with him that he had gotten while he lived in Paddan Aram.
19 While Laban was gone to cut the wool from his sheep, Rachel went into his house and stole the false gods that belonged to her father.
20 Jacob tricked Laban the Aramean. He did not tell Laban he was leaving. 21 Jacob took his family and everything he owned and left quickly. They crossed the Euphrates River and traveled toward the hill country of Gilead.
22 Three days later Laban learned that Jacob had run away. 23 So he gathered his men together and began to chase Jacob. After seven days Laban found Jacob near the hill country of Gilead. 24 That night God came to Laban in a dream and said, “Be careful! Be careful of every word you say to Jacob.”
The Search for the Stolen Gods
25 The next morning Laban caught up with Jacob. Jacob had set up his camp on the mountain, so Laban and all his men set up their camp in the hill country of Gilead.
26 Laban said to Jacob, “Why did you trick me? Why did you take my daughters like they were women you captured during war? 27 Why did you run away without telling me? If you had told me, I would have given you a party. There would have been singing and dancing with music. 28 You didn’t even let me kiss my grandchildren and my daughters goodbye. You were very foolish to do this! 29 I have the power to really hurt you. But last night the God of your father came to me in a dream. He warned me not to hurt you in any way. 30 I know that you want to go back to your home. That is why you left. But why did you steal the gods from my house?”
31 Jacob answered, “I left without telling you, because I was afraid. I thought you would take your daughters away from me. 32 But I did not steal your gods. If you find anyone here with me who has taken your gods, they will be killed. Your men will be my witnesses. You can look for anything that belongs to you. Take anything that is yours.” (Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen Laban’s gods.)
33 So Laban went and looked through Jacob’s camp. He looked in Jacob’s tent and then in Leah’s tent. Then he looked in the tent where the two slave women stayed, but he did not find the gods from his house. Then he went into Rachel’s tent. 34 Rachel had hidden the gods inside her camel’s saddle, and she was sitting on them. Laban looked through the whole tent, but he did not find the gods.
35 And Rachel said to her father, “Father, don’t be angry with me. I am not able to stand up before you. I am having my monthly time of bleeding.” So Laban looked through the camp, but he did not find the gods from his house.
36 Then Jacob became very angry and said, “What wrong have I done? What law have I broken? What right do you have to chase me and stop me? 37 You looked through everything I own and found nothing that belongs to you. If you found something, show it to me. Put it here where our men can see it. Let our men decide which one of us is right. 38 I have worked 20 years for you. During all that time none of the baby sheep and goats died during birth. And I have not eaten any of the rams from your flocks. 39 Any time a sheep was killed by wild animals, I always paid for the loss myself. I did not take the dead animal to you and say that it was not my fault. But I was robbed day and night. 40 In the daytime the sun took away my strength, and at night sleep was taken from my eyes by the cold. 41 I worked 20 years like a slave for you. For the first 14 years I worked to win your two daughters. The last six years I worked to earn your animals. And during that time you changed my pay ten times. 42 But the God of my ancestors, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac,[k] was with me. If God had not been with me, you would have sent me away with nothing. But he saw the trouble that I had and the work that I did, and last night God proved that I am right.”
Jacob and Laban’s Treaty
43 Laban said to Jacob, “These women are my daughters. These children belong to me, and these animals are mine. Everything you see here belongs to me, but I can do nothing to keep my daughters and their children. 44 So I am ready to make an agreement with you. We will set up a pile of stones to show that we have an agreement.”
45 So Jacob found a large rock and put it there to show that he had made an agreement. 46 He told his men to find some more rocks and to make a pile of rocks. Then they ate beside the pile of rocks. 47 Laban named that place Yegar Sahadutha.[l] But Jacob named that place Galeed.[m]
48 Laban said to Jacob, “This pile of rocks will help us both remember our agreement.” That is why Jacob called the place Galeed.
49 Then Laban said, “Let the Lord watch over us while we are separated from each other.” So that place was also named Mizpah.[n]
50 Then Laban said, “If you hurt my daughters, remember that God will punish you. If you marry other women, remember that God is watching. 51 Here are the rocks that I have put between us, and here is the special rock to show that we made an agreement. 52 This pile of rocks and this one special rock both help us to remember our agreement. I will never go past these rocks to fight against you, and you must never go on my side of these rocks to fight against me. 53 May the God of Abraham, the God of Nahor, and the God of their ancestors judge us guilty if we break this agreement.”
Jacob’s father, Isaac, called God “Fear.” So Jacob used that name to make the promise. 54 Then Jacob killed an animal and offered it as a sacrifice on the mountain. And he invited his men to come and share a meal. After they finished eating, they spent the night on the mountain. 55 Early the next morning Laban kissed his grandchildren and his daughters goodbye. He blessed them and went back home.
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International