Genesis 30-33

Genesis 30

¹When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I will die.”

²Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in God’s place, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”

³She said, “Behold, my maid Bilhah. Go in to her, that she may bear on my knees, and I also may obtain children by her.”

⁴She gave him Bilhah her servant as wife, and Jacob went in to her.

⁵Bilhah conceived, and bore Jacob a son.

⁶Rachel said, “God has judged me, and has also heard my voice, and has given me a son.” Therefore she called his name Dan.

⁷Bilhah, Rachel’s servant, conceived again, and bore Jacob a second son.

⁸Rachel said, “I have wrestled with my sister with mighty wrestlings, and have prevailed.” She named him Naphtali.

⁹When Leah saw that she had finished bearing, she took Zilpah, her servant, and gave her to Jacob as a wife.

¹⁰Zilpah, Leah’s servant, bore Jacob a son.

¹¹Leah said, “How fortunate!” She named him Gad.

¹²Zilpah, Leah’s servant, bore Jacob a second son.

¹³Leah said, “Happy am I, for the daughters will call me happy.” She named him Asher.

¹⁴Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother, Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.”

¹⁵Leah said to her, “Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes, also?” Rachel said, “Therefore he will lie with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes.”

¹⁶Jacob came from the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, “You must come in to me; for I have surely hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” He lay with her that night.

¹⁷God listened to Leah, and she conceived, and bore Jacob a fifth son.

¹⁸Leah said, “God has given me my hire, because I gave my servant to my husband.” She named him Issachar.

¹⁹Leah conceived again, and bore a sixth son to Jacob.

²⁰Leah said, “God has endowed me with a good dowry. Now my husband will live with me, because I have borne him six sons.” She named him Zebulun.

²¹Afterwards, she bore a daughter, and named her Dinah.

²²God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her, and opened her womb.

²³She conceived, bore a son, and said, “God has taken away my reproach.”

²⁴She named him Joseph, saying, “May the LORD add another son to me.”

²⁵When Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own place, and to my country.

²⁶Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me go; for you know my service with which I have served you.”

²⁷Laban said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, stay here, for I have divined that the LORD has blessed me for your sake.”

²⁸He said, “Appoint me your wages, and I will give it.”

²⁹Jacob said to him, “You know how I have served you, and how your livestock have fared with me.

³⁰For it was little which you had before I came, and it has increased to a multitude. The LORD has blessed you wherever I turned. Now when will I provide for my own house also?”

³¹Laban said, “What shall I give you?” Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this thing for me, I will again feed your flock and keep it.

³²I will pass through all your flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted one, and every black one among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats. This will be my hire.

³³So my righteousness will answer for me hereafter, when you come concerning my hire that is before you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and black among the sheep, that might be with me, will be considered stolen.”

³⁴Laban said, “Behold, let it be according to your word.”

³⁵That day, he removed the male goats that were streaked and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white in it, and all the black ones among the sheep, and gave them into the hand of his sons.

³⁶He set three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks.

³⁷Jacob took to himself rods of fresh poplar, almond, and plane tree, peeled white streaks in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.

³⁸He set the rods which he had peeled opposite the flocks in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink. They conceived when they came to drink.

³⁹The flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks produced streaked, speckled, and spotted.

⁴⁰Jacob separated the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the streaked and all the black in Laban’s flock. He put his own droves apart, and didn’t put them into Laban’s flock.

⁴¹Whenever the stronger of the flock conceived, Jacob laid the rods in front of the eyes of the flock in the watering troughs, that they might conceive among the rods;

⁴²but when the flock were feeble, he didn’t put them in. So the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s.

⁴³The man increased exceedingly, and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.

Genesis 31

¹Jacob heard Laban’s sons’ words, saying, “Jacob has taken away all that was our father’s. He has obtained all this wealth from that which was our father’s.”

²Jacob saw the expression on Laban’s face, and, behold, it was not toward him as before.

³The LORD said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers, and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”

⁴Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field to his flock,

⁵and said to them, “I see the expression on your father’s face, that it is not toward me as before; but the God of my father has been with me.

⁶You know that I have served your father with all of my strength.

⁷Your father has deceived me, and changed my wages ten times, but God didn’t allow him to hurt me.

⁸If he said, ‘The speckled will be your wages,’ then all the flock bore speckled. If he said, ‘The streaked will be your wages,’ then all the flock bore streaked.

⁹Thus God has taken away your father’s livestock, and given them to me.

¹⁰During mating season, I lifted up my eyes, and saw in a dream, and behold, the male goats which leaped on the flock were streaked, speckled, and grizzled.

¹¹The angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Here I am.’

¹²He said, ‘Now lift up your eyes, and behold, all the male goats which leap on the flock are streaked, speckled, and grizzled, for I have seen all that Laban does to you.

¹³I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar, where you vowed a vow to me. Now arise, get out from this land, and return to the land of your birth.’”

¹⁴Rachel and Leah answered him, “Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father’s house?

¹⁵Aren’t we considered as foreigners by him? For he has sold us, and has also used up our money.

¹⁶For all the riches which God has taken away from our father are ours and our children’s. Now then, whatever God has said to you, do.”

¹⁷Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and his wives on the camels,

¹⁸and he took away all his livestock, and all his possessions which he had gathered, including the livestock which he had gained in Paddan Aram, to go to Isaac his father, to the land of Canaan.

¹⁹Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep; and Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father’s.

²⁰Jacob deceived Laban the Syrian, in that he didn’t tell him that he was running away.

²¹So he fled with all that he had. He rose up, passed over the River, and set his face toward the mountain of Gilead.

²²Laban was told on the third day that Jacob had fled.

²³He took his relatives with him, and pursued him seven days’ journey. He overtook him in the mountain of Gilead.

²⁴God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream of the night, and said to him, “Be careful that you don’t speak to Jacob either good or bad.”

²⁵Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountain, and Laban with his relatives encamped in the mountain of Gilead.

²⁶Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done, that you have deceived me, and carried away my daughters like captives of the sword?

²⁷Why did you flee secretly, and deceive me, and didn’t tell me, that I might have sent you away with mirth and with songs, with tambourine and with harp;

²⁸and didn’t allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters? Now you have done foolishly.

²⁹It is in the power of my hand to hurt you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful that you don’t speak to Jacob either good or bad.’

³⁰Now, you want to be gone, because you greatly longed for your father’s house, but why have you stolen my gods?”

³¹Jacob answered Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I said, ‘Lest you should take your daughters from me by force.’

³²Anyone you find your gods with shall not live. Before our relatives, discern what is yours with me, and take it.” For Jacob didn’t know that Rachel had stolen them.

³³Laban went into Jacob’s tent, into Leah’s tent, and into the tent of the two female servants; but he didn’t find them. He went out of Leah’s tent, and entered into Rachel’s tent.

³⁴Now Rachel had taken the teraphim, put them in the camel’s saddle, and sat on them. Laban felt around all the tent, but didn’t find them.

³⁵She said to her father, “Don’t let my lord be angry that I can’t rise up before you; for I’m having my period.” He searched, but didn’t find the teraphim.

³⁶Jacob was angry, and argued with Laban. Jacob answered Laban, “What is my trespass? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued me?

³⁷Now that you have felt around in all my stuff, what have you found of all your household stuff? Set it here before my relatives and your relatives, that they may judge between us two.

³⁸“These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not cast their young, and I haven’t eaten the rams of your flocks.

³⁹That which was torn of animals, I didn’t bring to you. I bore its loss. Of my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night.

⁴⁰This was my situation: in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from my eyes.

⁴¹These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times.

⁴²Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night.”

⁴³Laban answered Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine! What can I do today to these my daughters, or to their children whom they have borne?

⁴⁴Now come, let’s make a covenant, you and I. Let it be for a witness between me and you.”

⁴⁵Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar.

⁴⁶Jacob said to his relatives, “Gather stones.” They took stones, and made a heap. They ate there by the heap.

⁴⁷Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed.

⁴⁸Laban said, “This heap is witness between me and you today.” Therefore it was named Galeed

⁴⁹and Mizpah, for he said, “The LORD watch between me and you, when we are absent one from another.

⁵⁰If you afflict my daughters, or if you take wives in addition to my daughters, no man is with us; behold, God is witness between me and you.”

⁵¹Laban said to Jacob, “See this heap, and see the pillar, which I have set between me and you.

⁵²May this heap be a witness, and the pillar be a witness, that I will not pass over this heap to you, and that you will not pass over this heap and this pillar to me, for harm.

⁵³The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.” Then Jacob swore by the fear of his father, Isaac.

⁵⁴Jacob offered a sacrifice in the mountain, and called his relatives to eat bread. They ate bread, and stayed all night in the mountain.

⁵⁵Early in the morning, Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them. Laban departed and returned to his place.

Genesis 32

¹Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

²When he saw them, Jacob said, “This is God’s army.” He called the name of that place Mahanaim.

³Jacob sent messengers in front of him to Esau, his brother, to the land of Seir, the field of Edom.

⁴He commanded them, saying, “This is what you shall tell my lord, Esau: ‘This is what your servant, Jacob, says. I have lived as a foreigner with Laban, and stayed until now.

⁵I have cattle, donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants. I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favor in your sight.’”

⁶The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau. He is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.”

⁷Then Jacob was greatly afraid and was distressed. He divided the people who were with him, along with the flocks, the herds, and the camels, into two companies.

⁸He said, “If Esau comes to the one company, and strikes it, then the company which is left will escape.”

⁹Jacob said, “God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the LORD, who said to me, ‘Return to your country, and to your relatives, and I will do you good,’

¹⁰I am not worthy of the least of all the loving kindnesses, and of all the truth, which you have shown to your servant; for with just my staff I crossed over this Jordan; and now I have become two companies.

¹¹Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and strike me and the mothers with the children.

¹²You said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which can’t be counted because there are so many.’”

¹³He stayed there that night, and took from that which he had with him a present for Esau, his brother:

¹⁴two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,

¹⁵thirty milk camels and their colts, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten foals.

¹⁶He delivered them into the hands of his servants, every herd by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass over before me, and put a space between herd and herd.”

¹⁷He commanded the foremost, saying, “When Esau, my brother, meets you, and asks you, saying, ‘Whose are you? Where are you going? Whose are these before you?’

¹⁸Then you shall say, ‘They are your servant, Jacob’s. It is a present sent to my lord, Esau. Behold, he also is behind us.’”

¹⁹He commanded also the second, and the third, and all that followed the herds, saying, “This is how you shall speak to Esau, when you find him.

²⁰You shall say, ‘Not only that, but behold, your servant, Jacob, is behind us.’” For, he said, “I will appease him with the present that goes before me, and afterward I will see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.”

²¹So the present passed over before him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.

²²He rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of the Jabbok.

²³He took them, and sent them over the stream, and sent over that which he had.

²⁴Jacob was left alone, and wrestled with a man there until the breaking of the day.

²⁵When he saw that he didn’t prevail against him, the man touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was strained as he wrestled.

²⁶The man said, “Let me go, for the day breaks.” Jacob said, “I won’t let you go unless you bless me.”

²⁷He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob”.

²⁸He said, “Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have fought with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

²⁹Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” He said, “Why is it that you ask what my name is?” So he blessed him there.

³⁰Jacob called the name of the place Peniel; for he said, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”

³¹The sun rose on him as he passed over Peniel, and he limped because of his thigh.

³²Therefore the children of Israel don’t eat the sinew of the hip, which is on the hollow of the thigh, to this day, because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the hip.

Genesis 33

¹Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau was coming, and with him four hundred men. He divided the children between Leah, Rachel, and the two servants.

²He put the servants and their children in front, Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph at the rear.

³He himself passed over in front of them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother.

⁴Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, fell on his neck, kissed him, and they wept.

⁵He lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, “Who are these with you?” He said, “The children whom God has graciously given your servant.”

⁶Then the servants came near with their children, and they bowed themselves.

⁷Leah also and her children came near, and bowed themselves. After them, Joseph came near with Rachel, and they bowed themselves.

⁸Esau said, “What do you mean by all this company which I met?” Jacob said, “To find favor in the sight of my lord.”

⁹Esau said, “I have enough, my brother; let that which you have be yours.”

¹⁰Jacob said, “Please, no, if I have now found favor in your sight, then receive my present at my hand, because I have seen your face, as one sees the face of God, and you were pleased with me.

¹¹Please take the gift that I brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough.” He urged him, and he took it.

¹²Esau said, “Let’s take our journey, and let’s go, and I will go before you.”

¹³Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are tender, and that the flocks and herds with me have their young, and if they overdrive them one day, all the flocks will die.

¹⁴Please let my lord pass over before his servant, and I will lead on gently, according to the pace of the livestock that are before me and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my lord to Seir.”

¹⁵Esau said, “Let me now leave with you some of the people who are with me.” He said, “Why? Let me find favor in the sight of my lord.”

¹⁶So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.

¹⁷Jacob traveled to Succoth, built himself a house, and made shelters for his livestock. Therefore the name of the place is called Succoth.

¹⁸Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan Aram; and encamped before the city.

¹⁹He bought the parcel of ground where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for one hundred pieces of money.

²⁰He erected an altar there, and called it El Elohe Israel.