Genesis 30:1-43
30 And Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, and was jealous of her sister and said to Jacob “Give me children or else I am a dead woman.”
2 And Jacob was angry at Rachel and said “Am I to take the place of God, who has refused you fruit from your body?”
3 And she said “Here is my servant Bilhah; go in to her and let her bear children on my knees, and let me have a family by her”;
4 and she gave him her maid Bilhah as wife, and Jacob went in to her.
5 And Bilhah became pregnant and bore Jacob a son;
6 and Rachel thought “God has dan, pronounced judgment, for me, and listened to my voice too and given me a son,” consequently she named him Dan.
7 And Rachel’s maid Bilhah became pregnant again and bore Jacob a second son;
8 * and Rachel thought “I have niphtal, played, a famous naphtul, trick, on my sister, and succeeded,” and named him Naphtali.
9 And Leah saw that she had stopped bearing, and she took her maid Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as wife;
10 and Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a son,
11 and Leah thought “In gad, luck!” and named him Gad.
12 And Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a second son;
13 and Leah thought “In osher, good fortune, to me, because lasses will assher, congratulate me!” and named him Asher.
14 And Reuben, in the time of wheat harvest, went and found mandrake-apples out on the range, and brought them to his mother Leah. And Rachel said to Leah “Give me some of your son’s mandrake-apples.”
15 And she said to her “Is it too little that you have got my ish, husband, and are you after getting my son’s mandrake-apples too?” And Rachel said “As to that, he shall lie with you tonight for your son’s mandrake-apples.”
16 And Jacob came in off the range at evening, and Leah went out to meet him and said to him “You are to come in to me, because I have sacar, rented, you for my son’s mandrake-apples”; and he lay with her that night.
17 And Jehovah listened to Leah, and she became pregnant and bore Jacob a fifth son;
18 * and Leah thought “God has given me my sacar, pay, for giving my maid to my ish, husband,” and named him Issacar.
19 And Leah became pregnant again and bore Jacob a sixth son;
20 * and Leah thought “God has zabad, dowered, me with a good zebed, dowry; this time my husband will zabad, reside in, me, because I have borne him six sons,” and named him Zebulun.
21 And afterward she bore a daughter and named her Dinah.
22 And God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb,
23 and she became pregnant and bore a son; and she thought “God has asaph, taken off, my opprobrium,”
24 and named him Joseph, thinking “Jehovah joseph, add, another son to me.”
25 And when Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban “Let me go to my own place and my own country:
26 give me my wives and children that I have served you for and let me go, for you know the service I have paid you.”
27 But Laban said to him “If you please, I have observed the signs, and Jehovah has blessed me on your account,”
28 and said “Name your wages to me and I will pay.”
29 And he said to him “You know how I have served you and how your stock have been with me:
30 that what you had before me was a little, and it spread to a great deal and Jehovah blessed you behind me; and now how soon shall I be doing something for my own family?”
31 And he said “What shall I give you?” And Jacob said “You shall not give me anything if you will do this for me. I will go back to pasturing your flocks, keeping them safe;
32 ** I will go through all your flocks today taking out every speckled and blotched animal, and every dark animal, among the sheep, and any blotched and speckled among the goats; and it shall be my pay.
33 * And my honesty shall testify against me tomorrow, when you go over my pay personally: anything that is not speckled and blotched among the goats, and dark among the sheep, is stolen goods in my possession.”
34 And Laban said “That’s the thing: we’ll have it as you say.”
35 * And that day he took out the striped and blotched he-goats and all the speckled and blotched she-goats, everything that had white in it, and everything dark among the sheep, and put them in the hands of his sons,
36 and set a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob.
And Jacob tended the rest of Laban’s flocks;
37 and Jacob took staves of fresh-cut storax and almond and plane-tree and peeled them in white patches, laying bare the whiteness in the staves,
38 and placed the peeled staves in the troughs, the watering-troughs where the sheep and goats came to drink, in front of the animals; and they were in heat when they came to drink.
39 * And the animals in heat had their minds on the staves, and the animals bore striped and speckled and blotched.
40 And Jacob separated the lambs and put the animals’ faces toward [here some words, of which the last should be “everything,” seem to be missing] striped and everything dark among Laban’s animals, and set up blocks exclusively his own and did not combine them with Laban’s animals.
41 * And at every time of heat of the more robust animals Jacob set the staves in the troughs under the animals’ eyes for their attention while they were in heat, but when the animals were feebler he did not;
42 so it came about that the feebler were Laban’s and the more robust Jacob’s.
43 And the man made very great progress, and had sheep and goats in plenty and slaves and camels and donkeys.
Footnotes
^ 30:8 Lit. a God’s naphtul
^ 30:18 In the earlier times of the Hebrews sacar and Issacar were pronounced shacar and ishshacar
^ 30:20 (reside in) Unc.
^ 30:32 Var. safe; go through all your flocks today and take out
^ 30:32 Or today; take out
^ 30:33 (personally) Unc.
^ 30:35 The Hebrew for white is laban
^ 30:39 Lit. the animals were in heat to the sticks
^ 30:41 Lit. for them to be in heat with the sticks
