1
And Rachel sees that she has not borne to Jacob, and Rachel is envious of her sister, and says to Jacob, “Give me sons, and if there is none—I die.”
2
And Jacob’s anger burns against Rachel, and he says, “Am I in stead of God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”
3
And she says, “Behold, my handmaid Bilhah, go in to her, and she bears on my knees, and I am built up, even I, from her”;
4
and she gives Bilhah her maidservant to him for a wife, and Jacob goes in to her;
5
and Bilhah conceives, and bears a son to Jacob,
6
and Rachel says, “God has decided for me, and has also listened to my voice, and gives a son to me”; therefore she has called his name Dan.
7
And Bilhah, Rachel’s maidservant, conceives again, and bears a second son to Jacob,
8
and Rachel says, “With wrestlings of God I have wrestled with my sister, indeed, I have prevailed”; and she calls his name Napthali.
Gad and Asher
9
And Leah sees that she has ceased from bearing, and she takes Zilpah her maidservant, and gives her to Jacob for a wife;
10
and Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant, bears a son to Jacob,
11
and Leah says, “A troop is coming”; and she calls his name Gad.
12
And Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant, bears a second son to Jacob,
13
and Leah says, “Because of my happiness, for daughters have pronounced me blessed”; and she calls his name Asher.
14
And Reuben goes in the days of wheat-harvest, and finds love-apples in the field, and brings them to his mother Leah, and Rachel says to Leah, “Please give to me of the love-apples of your son.”
15
And she says to her, “Is your taking my husband a little thing, that you have also taken the love-apples of my son?” And Rachel says, “He therefore lies with you tonight, for your son’s love-apples.”
16
And Jacob comes in from the field at evening; and Leah goes to meet him and says, “You come in to me, for [in] hiring I have hired you with my son’s love-apples”; and he lies with her during that night.
Issachar, Zebulun, and Dinah
17
And God listens to Leah, and she conceives, and bears a son to Jacob, a fifth,
18
and Leah says, “God has given my hire, because I have given my maidservant to my husband”; and she calls his name Issachar.
19
And Leah conceives again, and she bears a sixth son to Jacob,
20
and Leah says, “God has endowed me—a good dowry; this time my husband dwells with me, for I have borne six sons to him”; and she calls his name Zebulun;
21
and afterward she has borne a daughter, and calls her name Dinah.
Joseph
22
And God remembers Rachel, and God listens to her, and opens her womb,
23
and she conceives and bears a son, and says, “God has gathered up my reproach”;
24
and she calls his name Joseph, saying, “YHWH is adding to me another son.”
Jacob Prospers
25
And it comes to pass, when Rachel has borne Joseph, that Jacob says to Laban, “Send me away, and I go to my place, and to my land;
26
give up my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, and I go; for you have known my service which I have served you.”
27
And Laban says to him, “Now if I have found grace in your eyes—I have observed diligently that YHWH blesses me for your sake.”
28
He also says, “Define your hire to me, and I give.”
29
And he says to him, “You have known that which I have served you [in], and that which your substance was with me;
30
for [it is] little which you have had at my appearance, and it breaks forth into a multitude, and YHWH blesses you at my coming; and now, when do I make, I also, for my own house?”
31
And he says, “What do I give to you?” And Jacob says, “You do not give me anything; if you do this thing for me, I turn back; I have delight; I watch your flock;
32
I pass through all your flock today to turn aside every speckled and spotted sheep from there, and every brown sheep among the lambs, and speckled and spotted among the goats—and it has been my hire;
33
and my righteousness has answered for me in the day to come, when it comes in for my hire before your face—everyone which is not speckled and spotted among [my] goats, and brown among [my] lambs—it is stolen with me.”
34
And Laban says, “Behold, O that it were according to your word”;
35
and he turns aside during that day the striped and the spotted male goats, and all the speckled and the spotted female goats, everyone that [has] white in it, and every brown one among the lambs, and he gives into the hand of his sons,
36
and sets a journey of three days between himself and Jacob; and Jacob is feeding the rest of the flock of Laban.
37
And Jacob takes to himself a rod of fresh poplar and almond and plane-tree, and peels in them white peelings, making bare the white that [is] on the rods,
38
and sets up the rods which he has peeled in the gutters in the watering troughs (where the flock comes to drink), in front of the flock, that they may conceive in their coming to drink;
39
and the flocks conceive at the rods, and the flock bears striped, speckled, and spotted ones.
40
And Jacob has parted the lambs, and he puts the face of the flock toward the striped, also all the brown in the flock of Laban, and he sets his own droves by themselves, and has not set them near Laban’s flock.
41
And it has come to pass, whenever the strong ones of the flock conceive, that Jacob sets the rods before the eyes of the flock in the gutters, to cause them to conceive by the rods,
42
and when the flock is feeble, he does not set [them]; and the feeble ones have been Laban’s, and the strong ones Jacob’s.
43
And the man increases very exceedingly, and has many flocks, and maidservants, and menservants, and camels, and donkeys.
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