Genesis 30

¹And Rachel saw that she had not borne to Jacob, and Rachel envied her sister, and she said to Jacob, Give me sons, or I will die.

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

³And she said, Here is my maidservant Bilhah; come in to her, and she shall bear upon my knees, and I too shall be built up through her.

⁴And she gave him Bilhah her maidservant as a wife, and Jacob came in to her.

⁵And Bilhah conceived, and bore Jacob a son.

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

⁷And Bilhah, the maidservant of Rachel, conceived again and bore a second son to Jacob.

⁸And Rachel said, 'With wrestlings of God I have wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed.' And she called his name Naphtali.

⁹And Leah saw that she had ceased bearing, and she took Zilpah her maidservant and gave her to Jacob as a wife.

¹⁰And Zilpah, Leah's maidservant, bore Jacob a son.

¹¹And Leah said, 'Good fortune has come!' And she called his name Gad.

¹²And Zilpah, Leah's maidservant, bore a second son to Jacob.

¹³And Leah said, In my happiness, for daughters have called me happy. And she called his name Asher.

¹⁴And Reuben went out in the days of the wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to Leah his mother. And Rachel said to Leah, Give me, please, some of your son's mandrakes.

¹⁵And she said to her, 'Is it a small thing that you have taken my husband? And would you take also the mandrakes of my son?' And Rachel said, 'Therefore he shall lie with you tonight, in exchange for the mandrakes of your son.'

¹⁶And Jacob came in from the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and she said, You must come in to me, for I have hired you outright with my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night.

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

¹⁸And Leah said, 'God has given me my wages because I gave my maidservant to my husband.' And she called his name Issachar.

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

²⁰And Leah said, 'God has endowed me with a good endowment. This time my husband will honor me, for I have borne him six sons.' And she called his name Zebulun.

²¹And afterward she bore a daughter, and she called her name Dinah.

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

²³And she conceived and bore a son, and she said, 'God has gathered away my reproach.'

²⁴And she called his name Joseph, saying, 'May the LORD add to me another son.'

²⁵And it came about, when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, 'Send me away, that I may go to my place and to my land.'

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

²⁷And Laban said to him, 'If I have now found favor in your eyes — I have divined that the LORD has blessed me on your account.'

²⁸And he said, 'Name your wages to me and I will give it.'

²⁹And he said to him, 'You yourself know how I have served you, and how your livestock has fared with me.'

³⁰For what little you had before me has broken out into abundance, and the Lord has blessed you at my every step. And now, when shall I also provide for my own house?

³¹And he said, What shall I give you? And Jacob said, You need give me nothing, if you will do for me this thing: I will return and tend your flock and keep it.

³²Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted sheep, and every dark-colored one among the rams, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and it shall be my wages.

³³And my integrity will answer for me tomorrow, when you come to review my wages before you: everything that is not speckled or spotted among the goats and dark among the sheep — that is stolen, if it is with me.

³⁴And Laban said, Good, let it be according to your word.

³⁵And he removed that day the striped and spotted male goats, and all the speckled and spotted she-goats, all that had white on it, and all the dark-colored among the sheep, and gave them into the hand of his sons.

³⁶And he set a journey of three days between himself and Jacob, and Jacob was tending the remaining flocks of Laban.

³⁷And Jacob took for himself fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane tree, and he peeled white stripes in them, laying bare the white that was on the rods.

³⁸And he set the rods that he had peeled in the troughs, in the water channels where the flocks came to drink, in front of the flocks, and they conceived when they came to drink.

³⁹And the flocks conceived at the rods, and the flocks bore striped, speckled, and spotted ones.

⁴⁰And the rams Jacob separated, and he set the faces of the flock toward the striped and all the dark-colored in the flock of Laban, and he put his own herds apart and did not put them with the flock of Laban.

⁴¹And it came to pass, at every mating of the strong of the flock, that Jacob placed the rods before the eyes of the flock in the troughs, to make them mate among the rods.

⁴²But when the flock was feeble he did not put them in, so the feeble were Laban's and the vigorous were Jacob's.

⁴³And the man grew exceedingly great, and he had many flocks and maidservants and servants and camels and donkeys.