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¹ And when Rachel saw that she did not bear for Jacob, Rachel envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, Give me sons, otherwise I will die.² And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God's stead, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?³ And she said, Look, my slave Bilhah, go in to her; that she may bear on my knees, and I also may obtain [children] by her.⁴ And she gave him Bilhah her slave as wife: and Jacob went in to her.⁵ And Bilhah became pregnant, and bore Jacob a son.⁶ And Rachel said, God has judged me, and has also heard my voice, and has given me a son: therefore she called his name Dan.⁷ And Bilhah Rachel's slave became pregnant again, and bore Jacob a second son.⁸ And Rachel said, With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed: and she named him Naphtali.⁹ When Leah saw that she had left off bearing, she took Zilpah her slave, and gave her to Jacob as wife.¹⁰ And Zilpah Leah's slave bore Jacob a son.¹¹ And Leah said, Fortunate! and she named him Gad.¹² And Zilpah Leah's slave bore Jacob a second son.¹³ And Leah said, I am happy! for the daughters will call me happy: and she named him Asher.

¹⁴ And Reuben 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, Give me, I pray you, of your son's mandrakes.¹⁵ And she said to her, Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? and would you take away my son's mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with you tonight for your son's mandrakes.¹⁶ And Jacob 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. And he lay with her that night.¹⁷ And God listened to Leah, and she became pregnant, and bore Jacob a fifth son.¹⁸ And Leah said, God has given me my wages, because I gave my slave to my husband: and she named him Issachar.¹⁹ And Leah became pregnant again, and bore a sixth son to Jacob.²⁰ And Leah said, God has endowed me with a good dowry; now will my husband dwell with me, because I have borne him six sons: and she 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 gave birth to a son: and said, God has taken away my reproach:²⁴ and she named him Joseph, saying, Yahweh add to me another son.

²⁵ And it came to pass, when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, Send me away, that I may go to my own place, and to my country.²⁶ Give 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.²⁷ And Laban said to him, If now I have found favor in your eyes, [tarry]: [for] I have used magic and [found that] Yahweh has blessed me for your sake.²⁸ And he said, Appoint me your wages, and I will give it.²⁹ And he said to him, You know how I have served you, and how your cattle have fared with me.³⁰ For you had little before I came, and it has increased to a multitude; and Yahweh has blessed you wherever I turned: and now when shall I provide for my own house also?³¹ And he said, What shall I give you? And 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.³² I 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: and [of such] shall be my wages.³³ So shall my righteousness answer for me hereafter, when you shall come concerning my wages that are before you: every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and black among the sheep, that [if found] with me, shall be counted stolen.³⁴ And Laban said, Agreed, let it be according to your word.³⁵ And he removed that day the he-goats that were ringstreaked and spotted, and all the she-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;³⁶ and he set three days' journey between himself and Jacob: and Jacob fed the rest of Laban's flocks.

³⁷ And Jacob took for himself rods of fresh poplar, and of the almond and of the plane-tree. And peeled white streaks in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.³⁸ And he set the rods which he had peeled across from the flocks in the gutters in the watering-troughs where the flocks came to drink; and they conceived when they came to drink.³⁹ And the flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks brought forth ringstreaked, speckled, and spotted.⁴⁰ And Jacob separated the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ringstreaked and all the black in the flock of Laban: and he put his own droves apart, and didn't put them to Laban's flock.⁴¹ And it came to pass, whenever the stronger of the flock conceived, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the flock in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods;⁴² but when the flock was feeble, he didn't put them in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's.⁴³ And the man increased exceedingly, and had large flocks, and female slaves and male slaves, and camels and donkeys.