Genesis 30:25–43

Jacob’s Prosperity

²⁵As soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country. ²⁶Give me my wives and my children ^qfor whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you.” ²⁷But Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that¹¹ the Lord has blessed me because of you. ^28rName your wages, and I will give it.” ²⁹Jacob said to him, ^s“You yourself know how I have served you, and how your livestock has fared with me. ³⁰For you had little before I came, ^tand it has increased abundantly, and the Lord has blessed you wherever I turned. But now when shall I ^uprovide for my own household also?” ³¹He said, “What shall I give you?” Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it: ³²let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and ^vthey shall be my wages. ³³So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen.” ³⁴Laban said, “Good! Let it be as you have said.” ³⁵But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in the charge of his sons. ³⁶And he set a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban’s flock.

³⁷Then ^wJacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks. ³⁸He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the ^xwatering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, ³⁹the flocks bred in front of the sticks and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. ⁴⁰And Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban. He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban’s flock. ⁴¹Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks in the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the sticks, ⁴²but for the feebler of the flock he would not lay them there. So the feebler would be Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s. ⁴³Thus the man ^yincreased greatly and ^zhad large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.