Genesis 30:25–43

²⁵And it cometh to pass, when Rachel hath borne Joseph, that Jacob saith unto Laban, ‘Send me away, and I go unto my place, and to my land; ²⁶give up my wives and my children, for whom I have served thee, and I go; for thou—thou hast known my service which I have served thee.’ ²⁷And Laban saith unto him, ‘If, I pray thee, I have found grace in thine eyes—I have observed diligently that Jehovah doth bless me for thy sake.’ ²⁸He saith also, ‘Define thy hire to me, and I give.’ ²⁹And he saith unto him, ‘Thou—thou hast known that which I have served thee in, and that which thy substance was with me; ³⁰for it is little which thou hast had at my appearance, and it breaketh forth into a multitude, and Jehovah blesseth thee at my coming; and now, when do I make, I also, for mine own house?’ ³¹And he saith, ‘What do I give to thee?’ And Jacob saith, ‘Thou dost not give me anything; if thou do for me this thing, I turn back; I have delight; thy flock I watch; ³²I pass through all thy flock to-day to turn aside from thence every sheep speckled and spotted, and every brown sheep among the lambs, and speckled and spotted among the goats—and it hath been my hire; ³³and my righteousness hath answered for me in the day to come, when it cometh in for my hire before thy face;—every one which is not speckled and spotted among my goats, and brown among my lambs—it is stolen with me.’ ³⁴And Laban saith, ‘Lo, O that it were according to thy word;’ ³⁵and he turneth aside during that day the ring-streaked and the spotted he-goats, and all the speckled and the spotted she-goats, every one that hath white in it, and every brown one among the lambs, and he giveth into the hand of his sons, ³⁶and setteth a journey of three days between himself and Jacob; and Jacob is feeding the rest of the flock of Laban.

³⁷And Jacob taketh to himself a rod of fresh poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut, and doth peel in them white peelings, making bare the white that is on the rods, ³⁸and setteth up the rods which he hath peeled in the gutters in the watering troughs (when the flock cometh in to drink), over-against the flock, that they may conceive in their coming in to drink; ³⁹and the flocks conceive at the rods, and the flock beareth ring-streaked, speckled, and spotted ones. ⁴⁰And the lambs hath Jacob parted, and he putteth the face of the flock towards the ring-streaked, also all the brown in the flock of Laban, and he setteth his own droves by themselves, and hath not set them near Laban’s flock. ⁴¹And it hath come to pass whenever the strong ones of the flock conceive, that Jacob set the rods before the eyes of the flock in the gutters, to cause them to conceive by the rods, ⁴²and when the flock is feeble, he doth not set them; and the feeble ones have been Laban’s, and the strong ones Jacob’s. ⁴³And the man increaseth very exceedingly, and hath many flocks, and maid-servants, and men-servants, and camels, and asses.

Chapter 31