Genesis 29:31–35:18

Jacob’s Family Grows

³¹When the Lord saw that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, he made it possible for Leah to have children, but not Rachel. ³²Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, ⁿ because she said, “The Lord has seen my troubles. Surely now my husband will love me.”

³³Leah became pregnant again and gave birth to another son. She named him Simeon ⁿ and said, “The Lord has heard that I am not loved, so he has given me this son.”

³⁴Leah became pregnant again and gave birth to another son. She named him Levi ⁿ and said, “Now, surely my husband will be close to me, because I have given him three sons.”

³⁵Then Leah gave birth to another son. She named him Judah, ⁿ because she said, “Now I will praise the Lord.” Then Leah stopped having children.

30When Rachel saw that she was not having children for Jacob, she envied her sister Leah. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!” ²Jacob became angry with her and said, “Can I do what only God can do? He is the one who has kept you from having children.”

³Then Rachel said, “Here is my slave girl Bilhah. Have sexual relations with her so she can give birth to a child for me. Then I can have my own family through her.”

⁴So Rachel gave Bilhah, her slave girl, to Jacob as a wife, and he had sexual relations with her. ⁵She became pregnant and gave Jacob a son. ⁶Rachel said, “God has judged me innocent. He has listened to my prayer and has given me a son,” so she named him Dan. ⁿ

⁷Bilhah became pregnant again and gave Jacob a second son. ⁸Rachel said, “I have struggled hard with my sister, and I have won.” So she named that son Naphtali. ⁿ

⁹Leah saw that she had stopped having children, so she gave her slave girl Zilpah to Jacob as a wife. ¹⁰When Zilpah had a son, ¹¹Leah said, “I am lucky,” so she named him Gad. ^{n 12}Zilpah gave birth to another son, ¹³and Leah said, “I am very happy! Now women will call me happy,” so she named him Asher. ⁿ

¹⁴During the wheat harvest Reuben went into the field and found some mandrake ⁿ plants and brought them to his mother Leah. But Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.”

¹⁵Leah answered, “You have already taken away my husband, and now you are trying to take away my son’s mandrakes.”

But Rachel answered, “If you will give me your son’s mandrakes, you may sleep with Jacob tonight.”

¹⁶When Jacob came in from the field that night, Leah went out to meet him. She said, “You will have sexual relations with me tonight because I have paid for you with my son’s mandrakes.” So Jacob slept with her that night.

¹⁷Then God answered Leah’s prayer, and she became pregnant again. She gave birth to a fifth son ¹⁸and said, “God has given me what I paid for, because I gave my slave girl to my husband.” So Leah named her son Issachar. ⁿ

¹⁹Leah became pregnant again and gave birth to a sixth son. ²⁰She said, “God has given me a fine gift. Now surely Jacob will honor me, because I have given him six sons,” so she named him Zebulun. ^{n 21}Later Leah gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah.

²²Then God remembered Rachel and answered her prayer, making it possible for her to have children. ²³When she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, she said, “God has taken away my shame,” ²⁴and she named him Joseph. ⁿ Rachel said, “I wish the Lord would give me another son.”

Jacob Tricks Laban

²⁵After the birth of Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Now let me go to my own home and country. ²⁶Give me my wives and my children and let me go. I have earned them by working for you, and you know that I have served you well.”

²⁷Laban said to him, “If I have pleased you, please stay. I know the Lord has blessed me because of you. ²⁸Tell me what I should pay you, and I will give it to you.”

²⁹Jacob answered, “You know that I have worked hard for you, and your flocks have grown while I cared for them. ³⁰When I came, you had little, but now you have much. Every time I did something for you, the Lord blessed you. But when will I be able to do something for my own family?”

³¹Laban asked, “Then what should I give you?”

Jacob answered, “I don’t want you to give me anything. Just do this one thing, and I will come back and take care of your flocks. ³²Today let me go through all your flocks. I will take every speckled or spotted sheep, every black lamb, and every spotted or speckled goat. That will be my pay. ³³In the future you can easily see if I am honest. When you come to look at my flocks, if I have any goat that isn’t speckled or spotted or any lamb that isn’t black, you will know I stole it.”

³⁴Laban answered, “Agreed! We will do what you ask.” ³⁵But that day Laban took away all the male goats that had streaks or spots, all the speckled and spotted female goats (all those that had white on them), and all the black sheep. He told his sons to watch over them. ³⁶Then he took these animals to a place that was three days’ journey away from Jacob. Jacob took care of all the flocks that were left.

³⁷So Jacob cut green branches from poplar, almond, and plane trees and peeled off some of the bark so that the branches had white stripes on them. ³⁸He put the branches in front of the flocks at the watering places. When the animals came to drink, they also mated there, ³⁹so the flocks mated in front of the branches. Then the young that were born were streaked, speckled, or spotted. ⁴⁰Jacob separated the young animals from the others, and he made them face the streaked and dark animals in Laban’s flock. Jacob kept his animals separate from Laban’s. ⁴¹When the stronger animals in the flock were mating, Jacob put the branches before their eyes so they would mate near the branches. ⁴²But when the weaker animals mated, Jacob did not put the branches there. So the animals born from the weaker animals were Laban’s, and those born from the stronger animals were Jacob’s. ⁴³In this way Jacob became very rich. He had large flocks, many male and female servants, camels, and donkeys.

Jacob Runs Away

31One day Jacob heard Laban’s sons talking. They said, “Jacob has taken everything our father owned, and in this way he has become rich.” ²Then Jacob noticed that Laban was not as friendly as he had been before. ³The Lord said to Jacob, “Go back to the land where your ancestors lived, and I will be with you.”

⁴So Jacob told Rachel and Leah to meet him in the field where he kept his flocks. ⁵He said to them, “I have seen that your father is not as friendly with me as he used to be, but the God of my father has been with me. ⁶You both know that I have worked as hard as I could for your father, ⁷but he cheated me and changed my pay ten times. But God has not allowed your father to harm me. ⁸When Laban said, ‘You can have all the speckled animals as your pay,’ all the animals gave birth to speckled young ones. But when he said, ‘You can have all the streaked animals as your pay,’ all the flocks gave birth to streaked babies. ⁹So God has taken the animals away from your father and has given them to me.

¹⁰“I had a dream during the season when the flocks were mating. I saw that the only male goats who were mating were streaked, speckled, or spotted. ¹¹The angel of God spoke to me in that dream and said, ‘Jacob!’ I answered, ‘Yes!’ ¹²The angel said, ‘Look! Only the streaked, speckled, or spotted male goats are mating. I have seen all the wrong things Laban has been doing to you. ¹³I am the God who appeared to you at Bethel, where you poured olive oil on the stone you set up on end and where you made a promise to me. Now I want you to leave here and go back to the land where you were born.’ ”

¹⁴Rachel and Leah answered Jacob, “Our father has nothing to give us when he dies. ¹⁵He has treated us like strangers. He sold us to you, and then he spent all of the money you paid for us. ¹⁶God took all this wealth from our father, and now it belongs to us and our children. So do whatever God has told you to do.”

¹⁷So Jacob put his children and his wives on camels, ¹⁸and they began their journey back to Isaac, his father, in the land of Canaan. 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 Northwest Mesopotamia.

¹⁹While Laban was gone to cut the wool from his sheep, Rachel stole the idols that belonged to him. ²⁰And Jacob tricked Laban the Aramean by not telling him he was leaving. ²¹Jacob and his family left quickly, crossed the Euphrates River, and traveled toward the mountains of Gilead.

²²Three days later Laban learned that Jacob had run away, ²³so he gathered his relatives and began to chase him. After seven days Laban found him in the mountains of Gilead. ²⁴That night God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream and said, “Be careful! Do not say anything to Jacob, good or bad.”

The Search for the Stolen Idols

²⁵So Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had made his camp in the mountains, so Laban and his relatives set up their camp in the mountains of Gilead. ²⁶Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done? You cheated me and took my daughters as if you had captured them in a war. ²⁷Why did you run away secretly and trick me? Why didn’t you tell me? Then I could have sent you away with joy and singing and with the music of tambourines and harps. ²⁸You did not even let me kiss my grandchildren and my daughters good-bye. You were very foolish to do this! ²⁹I have the power to harm you, but last night the God of your father spoke to me and warned me not to say anything to you, good or bad. ³⁰I know you want to go back to your home, but why did you steal my idols?”

³¹Jacob answered Laban, “I left without telling you, because I was afraid you would take your daughters away from me. ³²If you find anyone here who has taken your idols, that person will be killed! Your relatives will be my witnesses. You may look for anything that belongs to you and take anything that is yours.” (Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen Laban’s idols.)

³³So…