Genesis 30:1–43

¹When 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.”²At 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?”³So she said: “Here is my slave girl Bil′hah. Have relations with her, that she may give birth upon my knees and that I, even I, may get children from her.”⁴With that she gave him Bil′hah her maidservant as wife, and Jacob had relations with her.⁵And Bil′hah became pregnant and in time bore Jacob a son.⁶Then 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.⁷And Bil′hah, Rachel’s maidservant, became pregnant once more and in time bore a second son to Jacob.⁸Then Rachel said: “With strenuous wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister. I have also come off winner!” So she called his name Naph′ta‧li.

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

¹⁴Now Reu′ben went walking in the days of the wheat harvest and got to find mandrakes in the field. So he brought them to Le′ah his mother. Then Rachel said to Le′ah: “Give me, please, some of your son’s mandrakes.”¹⁵At 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.”

¹⁶When Jacob was coming from the field in the evening, Le′ah 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.¹⁷And God heard and answered Le′ah and she became pregnant and in time bore to Jacob a fifth son.¹⁸Then Le′ah said: “God has given me a hireling’s wages, because I have given my maidservant to my husband.” So she called his name Is′sa‧char.¹⁹And Le′ah became pregnant once more and in time bore a sixth son to Jacob.²⁰Then Le′ah 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 Zeb′u‧lun.²¹And afterward she bore a daughter and then called her name Di′nah.

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

²⁵And it followed that when Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob immediately said to La′ban: “Send me away that I may go to my place and to my country.²⁶Give 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.”²⁷Then La′ban 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.”²⁸And he added: “Stipulate your wages to me and I shall give them.”²⁹So he said to him: “You yourself must know how I have served you and how your herd has fared with me;³⁰that 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?”

³¹Then 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.³²I 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.³³And 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.”

³⁴To this La′ban said: “Why, that is fine! Let it be according to your word.”³⁵Then 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.³⁶After that he set a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob was shepherding the flocks of La′ban that remained over.

³⁷Then 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.³⁸Finally 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.

³⁹Consequently the flocks would get in heat before the staffs, and the flocks would produce striped, speckled and color‐patched ones.⁴⁰And 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 La′ban. Then he set his own droves by themselves and did not set them by the flocks of La′ban.⁴¹And 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.⁴²But when the flocks showed feebleness he would not locate them there. So the feeble ones always came to be La′ban’s, but the robust ones Jacob’s.

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