Mwanzo 30

¹Rachel was bearing Jacob no children, and seeing this she grew jealous of her sister. “Give me sons,” she said to Jacob, “or I will die!” ²Jacob grew angry with Rachel. “Can I take the place of God?” he said. “It is God who has kept you from having children.” ³“Take my slave woman Bilhah,” she said. “Lie with her, so that she can give birth on my knees and I may gain a family through her as well.” ⁴So Rachel gave Jacob her slave Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob lay with her. ⁵Bilhah became pregnant and bore Jacob a son. ⁶Rachel said, “God has judged my case and heard my cry, and he has given me a son.” That is why she named him Dan. ⁷Rachel’s slave Bilhah became pregnant again and bore Jacob a second son. ⁸Then Rachel said, “I have fought a mighty struggle with my sister, and I have won.” So she named him Naphtali. ⁹Leah, seeing that her childbearing had come to an end, gave her slave woman Zilpah to Jacob as a wife. ¹⁰Leah’s slave Zilpah bore Jacob a son. ¹¹“Fortune has come to me!” Leah said, and she named him Gad.^{a 12}Then Zilpah, Leah’s slave, bore Jacob a second son. ¹³Leah said, “Happy am I! Women everywhere will speak of my happiness.” So she named him Asher. ¹⁴At wheat harvest time Reuben was out in the fields and came upon some mandrakes, which he brought home to his mother Leah. Rachel asked Leah, “Please let me have some of the mandrakes your son found.” ¹⁵But Leah answered, “Is it a small thing to you that you have taken my husband? And now you would take my son’s mandrakes too?” Rachel said, “Then Jacob may sleep with you tonight; that is the price of your son’s mandrakes.” ¹⁶That evening, as Jacob was coming in from the fields, Leah went out to him and said, “Tonight you are coming to me. I have paid for you with my son’s mandrakes.” And he spent that night with her. ¹⁷God heard Leah’s prayer. She conceived and gave Jacob a fifth son. ¹⁸Leah said, “God has given me my wages for giving my slave woman to my husband.” So she named him Issachar. ¹⁹Once more Leah became pregnant, and she bore Jacob a sixth son. ²⁰Leah said, “God has endowed me with a rich gift. Now at last my husband will honor me, since I have borne him six sons.” So she named him Zebulun. ²¹Afterward she had a daughter, whom she named Dinah. ²²Then God remembered Rachel. He heard her prayers and opened her womb. ²³She conceived and bore a son, and she said, “God has removed my shame.” ²⁴She called him Joseph, for she said, “May the LORD add one more son to me.” ²⁵After Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Let me go now, so that I can return to my own home and country. ²⁶Let me take my wives and my children, for whom I served you, and go. You yourself know the work I have done for you.” ²⁷But Laban said to him, “If you are well disposed toward me, stay. I have learned by omens that the LORD has blessed me because of you.” ²⁸He went on, “Tell me what wages you want, and I will give them.” ²⁹Jacob replied, “You know what my service has been to you, and what has become of your herds while I tended them. ³⁰Before I came you had only a little, and it has multiplied many times over; the LORD has blessed you with every step I took. But when am I to provide for my own family?” ³¹Laban asked, “What am I to give you?” “Nothing at all,” Jacob answered. “Just agree to one condition, and I will once again shepherd your flocks and guard them. ³²Today I will pass through all your flocks and set apart every animal that is speckled or spotted: the dark ones among the lambs and the spotted and speckled among the goats. These will be my pay. ³³Later on, my honesty will be my witness. Whenever you come to look over my wages, if I have any goat without speckles or spots, or any lamb that is not dark, you may count it as stolen.” ³⁴Laban said, “Very well, let it be just as you say.” ³⁵But on that very day Laban picked out the male goats with stripes or spots, the female goats with speckles or spots, any with white on them, and every dark lamb, and handed them over to his sons. ³⁶He then moved them a three days’ journey away from Jacob, and Jacob was left to pasture the rest of Laban’s flocks. ³⁷Jacob then took freshly cut sticks of poplar, almond and plane wood and peeled bark off them in strips, baring the white wood underneath. ³⁸He set the peeled sticks in the troughs at the watering places, right in front of the animals as they came to drink, for they came into heat when they came to drink. ³⁹The flocks bred in front of the sticks, and their young were born striped, speckled and spotted. ⁴⁰Jacob kept the lambs apart, but turned the animals to face the striped and dark ones in Laban’s flock. In this way he built up flocks of his own, which he kept apart from Laban’s.^{b 41}Each time the sturdier animals were mating, Jacob laid the sticks in the troughs in full view of the flock, so that they bred among the sticks; ⁴²but when the weaker animals mated, he left the sticks out. In this way the feeble animals ended up as Laban’s and the strong ones as Jacob’s. ⁴³So Jacob grew richer and richer. He came to own great flocks, slaves both female and male, camels and donkeys.