Israel

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

He 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.

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

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

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

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

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

He heard the words of Laban’s sons, saying, “Jacob has taken away all that was our father’s. From that which was our father’s, has he gotten all this wealth.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

God 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.”

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

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

It 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.’

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

Anyone 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.

Laban 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.

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

Laban answered Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine: and what can I do this day to these my daughters, or to their children whom they have borne?

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