January 10
 Genesis 30:1 31:55

 
 30
When Rachel came to see that she had borne nothing to Jacob, Rachel got jealous of her sister and began to say to Jacob: “Give me children or otherwise I shall be a dead woman.” 2 At this Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel and he said: “Am I in the place of God, who has held back the fruit of the belly from you?” 3 So she said: “Here is my slave girl Bilhah. Have relations with her, that she may give birth upon my knees and that I, even I, may get children from her.” 4 With that she gave him Bilhah her maidservant as wife, and Jacob had relations with her. 5 And Bilhah became pregnant and in time bore Jacob a son. 6 Then Rachel said: “God has acted as my judge and has also listened to my voice, so that he gave me a son.” That is why she called his name Dan. 7 And Bilhah, Rachel’s maidservant, became pregnant once more and in time bore a second son to Jacob. 8 Then Rachel said: “With strenuous wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister. I have also come off winner!” So she called his name Naphtali.

      9 When Leah came to see that she had left off giving birth, she proceeded to take Zilpah her maidservant and to give her to Jacob as wife. 10 In time Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant, bore a son to Jacob. 11 Then Leah said: “With good fortune!” So she called his name Gad. 12 After that Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant, bore a second son to Jacob. 13 Then Leah said: “With my happiness! For the daughters will certainly pronounce me happy.” So she called his name Asher.

     14 Now Reuben went walking in the days of the wheat harvest and got to find mandrakes in the field. So he brought them to Leah his mother. Then Rachel said to Leah: “Give me, please, some of your son’s mandrakes.” 15 At this she said to her: “Is this a little thing, your having taken my husband, with your now taking also my son’s mandrakes?” So Rachel said: “For that reason he is going to lie down with you tonight in exchange for your son’s mandrakes.”

      16 When Jacob was coming from the field in the evening, Leah went on out to meet him and then said: “It is with me you are going to have relations, because I have hired you outright with my son’s mandrakes.” Accordingly he lay down with her that night. 17 And God heard and answered Leah and she became pregnant and in time bore to Jacob a fifth son. 18 Then Leah said: “God has given me a hireling’s wages, because I have given my maidservant to my husband.” So she called his name Issachar. 19 And Leah became pregnant once more and in time bore a sixth son to Jacob. 20 Then Leah said: “God has endowed me, yes, me, with a good endowment. At last my husband will tolerate me, because I have borne him six sons.” So she called his name Zebulun. 21 And afterward she bore a daughter and then called her name Dinah.

      22 Finally God remembered Rachel, and God heard and answered her in that he opened her womb. 23 And she became pregnant and brought a son to birth. Then she said: “God has taken away my reproach!” 24 So she called his name Joseph, saying: “Jehovah is adding another son to me.”

      25 And it followed that when Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob immediately said to Laban: “Send me away that I may go to my place and to my country. 26 Give over my wives and my children, for whom I have served with you, that I may go; for you yourself must know my service which I have rendered you.” 27 Then Laban said to him: “If, now, I have found favor in your eyes,—I have taken the omens to the effect that Jehovah is blessing me due to you.” 28 And he added: “Stipulate your wages to me and I shall give them.” 29 So he said to him: “You yourself must know how I have served you and how your herd has fared with me; 30 that it was little that you actually had before my coming, and it went expanding to a multitude, in that Jehovah blessed you since I stepped in. So now when am I to do something also for my own house?”

      31 Then he said: “What shall I give you?” And Jacob went on to say: “You will give me nothing whatsoever! If you will do this thing for me, I shall resume shepherding your flock. I shall continue guarding it. 32 I will pass among your whole flock today. You set aside from there every sheep speckled and with color patches, and every dark-brown sheep among the young rams and any color-patched and speckled one among the she-goats. Hereafter such must be my wages. 33 And my right-doing must answer for me on whatever future day you may come to look over my wages; every one that is not speckled and color-patched among the she-goats and dark brown among the young rams is something stolen if it is with me.”

      34 To this Laban said: “Why, that is fine! Let it be according to your word.” 35 Then he set aside on that day the he-goats striped and color-patched and all the she-goats speckled and color-patched, every one in which there was any white and every one dark brown among the young rams, but he gave them over into the hands of his sons. 36 After that he set a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob was shepherding the flocks of Laban that remained over.

      37 Then Jacob took for his use staffs still moist of the storax tree and of the almond tree and of the plane tree and peeled in them white peeled spots by laying bare white places which were upon the staffs. 38 Finally the staffs that he had peeled he placed in front of the flock, in the gutters, in the water drinking troughs, where the flocks would come to drink, that they might get into a heat before them when they came to drink.

      39 Consequently the flocks would get in heat before the staffs, and the flocks would produce striped, speckled and color-patched ones. 40 And Jacob separated the young rams and then turned the faces of the flocks to the striped ones and all the dark-brown ones among the flocks of Laban. Then he set his own droves by themselves and did not set them by the flocks of Laban. 41 And it always occurred that whenever the robust flocks would get in heat, Jacob would locate the staffs in the gutters before the eyes of the flocks, that they might get in heat by the staffs. 42 But when the flocks showed feebleness he would not locate them there. So the feeble ones always came to be Laban’s, but the robust ones Jacob’s.

      43 And the man went on increasing more and more, and great flocks and maidservants and menservants and camels and asses came to be his.

 
 31  In time he got to hear the words of the sons of Laban, saying: “Jacob has taken everything that belonged to our father; and from what belonged to our father he has amassed all this wealth.” 2 When Jacob would look at the face of Laban, here it was not with him as formerly. 3 Finally Jehovah said to Jacob: “Return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I shall continue with you.” 4 Then Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah out to the field to his flock, 5 and he said to them:

      “I am seeing the face of YOUR father, that he is not the same toward me as formerly; but the God of my father has proved to be with me. 6 And YOU yourselves certainly know that with all my power I have served YOUR father. 7 And YOUR father has trifled with me and he has changed my wages ten times, but God has not allowed him to do me harm. 8 If on the one hand he would say, ‘The speckled ones will become your wages,’ then the whole flock produced speckled ones; but if on the other hand he would say, ‘The striped ones will become your wages,’ then the whole flock produced striped ones. 9 So God kept taking the herd of YOUR father away and giving it to me. 10 At last it came about at the time when the flock got in heat that I raised my eyes and saw a sight in a dream and here the he-goats springing upon the flock were striped, speckled and spotty. 11 Then the angel of the [true] God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob!’ to which I said, ‘Here I am.’ 12 And he continued, ‘Raise your eyes, please, and see all the he-goats springing upon the flock are striped, speckled and spotty, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. 13 I am the [true] God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you vowed a vow to me. Now get up, go out of this land and return to the land of your birth.’”

      14 At this Rachel and Leah answered and said to him: “Is there a share of inheritance for us anymore in the house of our father? 15 Are we not really considered as foreigners to him since he has sold us, so that he keeps eating continually even from the money given for us? 16 For all the riches that God has taken away from our father are ours and our children’s. So now everything God has said to you do.”

      17 Then Jacob got up and lifted his children and his wives onto the camels; 18 and he began driving all his herd and all the goods that he had accumulated, the herd of his acquisition that he had accumulated in Paddan-aram, in order to go to Isaac his father to the land of Canaan.

      19 Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep. Meantime Rachel stole the teraphim that belonged to her father. 20 So Jacob outwitted Laban the Syrian, because he had not told him that he was running away. 21 And he proceeded to run away and to get up and cross the River, he and all he had. After that he directed his face to the mountainous region of Gilead. 22 Later, on the third day, it was told to Laban that Jacob had run away. 23 With that he took his brothers with him and went chasing after him for a distance of seven days’ journey and caught up with him in the mountainous region of Gilead. 24 Then God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night and said to him: “Watch yourself that you do not go speaking either good or bad with Jacob.”

      25 So Laban approached Jacob, as Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountain and Laban had encamped his brothers in the mountainous region of Gilead. 26 Then Laban said to Jacob: “What have you done, in that you resorted to outwitting me and driving my daughters off like captives taken by the sword? 27 Why did you have to run away secretly and outwit me and not tell me, that I might send you away with rejoicing and with songs, with tambourine and with harp? 28 And you did not give me a chance to kiss my children and my daughters. Now you have acted foolishly. 29 It is in the power of my hand to do harm to YOU people, but the God of YOUR father talked to me last night, saying, ‘Watch yourself against speaking either good or bad with Jacob.’ 30 While you have actually gone now because you have been yearning intensely for the house of your father, why, though, have you stolen my gods?”

      31 In answer Jacob proceeded to say to Laban: “It was because I was afraid. For I said to myself, ‘You might tear your daughters away from me.’ 32 Whoever it is with whom you may find your gods, let him not live. Before our brothers, examine for yourself what is with me and take them for yourself.” But Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them. 33 So Laban went on into the tent of Jacob and into the tent of Leah and into the tent of the two slave girls, but did not find them. Finally he went out of Leah’s tent and went on into Rachel’s tent. 34 Now Rachel had taken the teraphim, and she resorted to putting them in the woman’s saddle basket of the camel, and she kept sitting upon them. So Laban went feeling through the whole tent, but did not find them. 35 Then she said to her father: “Do not let anger gleam in the eyes of my lord, because I am not able to get up before you, for the customary thing with women is upon me.” So he searched on carefully, but did not find the teraphim.

      36 And Jacob became angry and began to quarrel with Laban, and in answer Jacob went on to say to Laban: “What is the revolt on my part, what the sin of mine, as a reason why you have hotly pursued after me? 37 Now that you have felt through all my goods, what of all the goods of your house have you found? Put it here in front of my brothers and your brothers, and let them decide between us two. 38 These twenty years I have been with you. Your female sheep and your she-goats did not suffer abortions, and the rams of your flock I never ate. 39 Any animal torn to pieces I did not bring to you. I myself would stand the loss of it. Whether one was stolen by day or was stolen by night, you would put in a claim for it from my hand. 40 It has been my experience that by day the heat consumed me and the cold by night, and my sleep would flee from my eyes. 41 This makes twenty years for me in your house. I have served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flock, and you kept changing my wages ten times. 42 If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Dread of Isaac, had not proved on my side, you would now have sent me away empty-handed. My wretchedness and the toil of my hands God has seen, and so he reproved you last night.”

      43 Then Laban in answer said to Jacob: “The daughters are my daughters and the children my children and the flock my flock, and everything you are looking at is mine and my daughters’. What can I do against these today or against their children whom they have borne? 44 And now, come, let us conclude a covenant, I and you, and it must serve as a witness between me and you.” 45 Accordingly Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. 46 Then Jacob said to his brothers: “Pick up stones!” And they went taking stones and making a heap. After that they ate there on the heap. 47 And Laban began calling it Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed.

      48 And Laban proceeded to say: “This heap is a witness between me and you today.” That is why he called its name Galeed, 49 and The Watchtower, because he said: “Let Jehovah keep watch between me and you when we are situated unseen the one from the other. 50 If you go to afflicting my daughters and if you go to taking wives in addition to my daughters, there is no man with us. See! God is a witness between me and you.” 51 And Laban went on to say to Jacob: “Here is this heap and here is the pillar that I have erected between me and you. 52 This heap is a witness, and the pillar is something that bears witness, that I will not pass this heap against you and that you will not pass this heap and this pillar against me for harm. 53 Let the god of Abraham and the god of Nahor judge between us, the god of their father.” But Jacob swore by the Dread of his father Isaac.

      54 After that Jacob sacrificed a sacrifice in the mountain and invited his brothers to eat bread. Accordingly they ate bread and passed the night in the mountain. 55 However, Laban got up early in the morning and kissed his children and his daughters and blessed them. Then Laban got on his way that he might return to his own place.