1JACOB LEARNT that Laban's sons were saying, 'Jacob has taken everything that was our father's, and all his wealth has come from our father's property.' 2He also noticed that Laban was not so well disposed to him as he had once been. 3Then the LORD said to Jacob, 'Go back to the land of your fathers and to your kindred. I will be with you.' 4So Jacob sent to fetch Rachel and Leah to his flocks out in the country 5and said to them, 'I see that your father is not as well disposed to me as once he was; yet the God of my father has been with me. 6You know how I have served your father to the best of my power, 7but he has cheated me and changed my wages ten times over. Yet God did not let him do me any harm. 8If Laban said, "The spotted ones shall be your wages", then all the flock bore spotted young; and if he said, "The striped ones shall be your wages", then all the flock bore striped young. 9God has taken away your father's property and has given it to me. 10In the season when the flocks were on heat, I had a dream: I looked up and saw that the he-goats mounting the flock were striped and spotted and dappled. 11The angel of God said to me in my dream, "Jacob", and I replied, "Here I am", 12and he said, "Look up and see: all the he-goats mounting the flock are striped and spotted and dappled. I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. 13I am the God who appeared to you at Bethel where you anointed a sacred pillar and where you made your vow. Now leave this country at once and return to the land of your birth." ' 14Rachel and Leah answered him, 'We no longer have any part or lot in our father's house. 15Does he not look on us as foreigners, now that he has sold us and spent on himself the whole of the money paid for us? 16But all the wealth which God has saved from our father's clutches is ours and our children's. Now do everything that God has said.' 17Jacob at once set his sons and his wives on camels, 18and drove off all the herds and livestock which he had acquired in Paddan-aram, to go to his father Isaac in Canaan.
19When Laban the Aramaean had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father's household gods, 20and Jacob deceived Laban, keeping his departure secret. 21So Jacob ran away with all that he had, crossed the River and made for the hill-country of Gilead.
22Three days later, when Laban heard that Jacob had run away, 23he took his kinsmen with him, pursued Jacob for seven days and caught up with him in the hill-country of Gilead. 24But God came to Laban in a dream by night and said to him, 'Be careful to say nothing to Jacob, either good or bad.'
25When Laban overtook him, Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill-country of Gilead, and Laban pitched his in the company of his kinsmen in the same hill-country. 26Laban said to Jacob, 'What have you done? You have deceived me and carried off my daughters as though they were captives taken in war. 27Why did you slip away secretly without telling me? I would have set you on your way with songs and the music of tambourines and harps. 28You did not even let me kiss my daughters and their children. In this you were at fault. 29It is in my power to do you an injury, but yesterday the God of your father spoke to me; he told me to be careful to say nothing to you, either good or bad. 30I know that you went away because you were homesick and pining for your father's house, but why did you steal my gods?'
31Jacob answered, 'I was afraid; I thought you would take your daughters from me by force. 32Whoever is found in possession of your gods shall die for it. Let our kinsmen here be witnesses: point out anything I have that is yours, and take it back.' Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the gods. 33So Laban went into Jacob's tent and Leah's tent and that of the two slave-girls, but he found nothing. When he came out of Leah's tent he went into Rachel's. 34Now she had taken the household gods and put them in the camel-bag and was sitting on them. Laban went through everything in the tent and found nothing. 35Rachel said to her father, 'Do not take it amiss, sir, that I cannot rise in your presence: the common lot of woman is upon me.' So for all his search Laban did not ?nd his household gods.
36Jacob was angry, and he expostulated with Laban, exclaiming, 'What have I done wrong? What is my offence, that you have come after me in hot pursuit and gone through all my possessions? 37Have you found anything belonging to your household? If so, set it here in front of my kinsmen and yours, and let them judge between the two of us. 38In all the twenty years I have been with you, your ewes and she-goats have never miscarried; I have not eaten the rams of your flocks; 39I have never brought to you the body of any animal mangled by wild beasts, but I bore the loss myself; you claimed compensation from me for anything stolen by day or by night. 40This was the way of it: by day the heat consumed me and the frost by night, and sleep deserted me. 41For twenty years I have been in your household. I worked for you fourteen years to win your two daughters and six years for your flocks, and you changed my wages ten times over. 42If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would have sent me away empty-handed. But God saw my labour and my hardships, and last night he rebuked you.'
43Laban answered Jacob, 'The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks; all that you see is mine. But as for my daughters, what can I do today about them and the children they have borne? 44Come now, we will make an agreement, you and I, and let it stand as a witness between us.' 45So Jacob chose a great stone and set it upright as a sacred pillar. 46Then he told his kinsmen to gather stones, and they took them and built a cairn, and there beside the cairn they ate together. 47Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha , and Jacob called it Gal-ed . 48Laban said, 'This cairn is witness today between you and me.' For this reason it was named Gal-ed; 50If you ill-treat my daughters or take other wives beside them when no one is there to see, then God be witness between us.' 51Laban said further to Jacob, 'Here is this cairn, and here the pillar which I have set up between us. 52This cairn is witness and the pillar is witness: I for my part will not pass beyond this cairn to your side, and you for your part shall not pass beyond this cairn and this pillar to my side to do an injury, 53otherwise the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor will judge between us.' And Jacob swore this oath in the name of the Fear of Isaac his father. 54He slaughtered an animal for sacrifice, there in the hill-country, and summoned his kinsmen to the feast. So they ate together and spent the night there.
55Laban rose early in the morning, kissed his daughters and their children, blessed them and went home again. 49it was also named Mizpah , for Laban said, 'May the LORD watch between you and me, when we are parted from each other's sight.
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