Study Desk

Then Jacob came in 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." So he lay with her that night.

And Leah said, "God has given me my wages because I gave my servant-woman to my husband." So she named him Issachar.

And Leah said, "God has gifted me a good gift; this time my husband will honor me because I have borne him six sons." So she named him Zebulun.

So she conceived and bore a son and said, "God has taken away my reproach."

So he said, "What shall I give you?" And Jacob said, "You shall not give me anything. If you will do this one thing for me, I will again pasture and keep your flock:

So my righteousness will answer for me later, when you come concerning my wages. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, will be considered stolen."

So he removed on that day the striped and spotted male goats and all the speckled and spotted female goats, every one with white in it, and all the black ones among the sheep, and gave them into the care of his sons.

So the flocks mated by the rods, and the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted.

Now it would be that, whenever the stronger of the flock were mating, Jacob would place the rods in the sight of the flock in the trough, so that they might mate by the rods;

but when the flock was feeble, he did not put them in; so the feebler were Laban's and the stronger Jacob's.

So the man spread out exceedingly and had large flocks and female and male servants and camels and donkeys.

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

So he fled with all that he had; and he arose and crossed the River and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.

so he took his relatives with him and pursued him a distance of seven days' journey, and he overtook him in the hill country of Gilead.

So Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his relatives camped in the hill country of Gilead.

Why did you flee secretly and deceive me and not tell me—so that I might have sent you away with gladness and with songs, with tambourine and with lyre—

So now you have indeed gone away because you longed greatly for your father's house; but why did you steal my gods?"

So Laban went into Jacob's tent and into Leah's tent and into the tent of the two maidservants, but he did not find them. Then he went out of Leah's tent and entered Rachel's tent.

And she said to her father, "Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the manner of women is upon me." So he searched but did not find the household idols.

If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the dread of Isaac, had not been for me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. God has seen my affliction and the toil of my hands, so He rendered the decision last night."