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📚✭And when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I’ll die”.2 📚And Jacob’s anger was aroused against Rachel and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”
3 📚✭And she said, “See my maid Bilhah, go to her. She will bear a child on my knees, so that I may also have children through her”.
4 📚And she gave him Bilhah her maid servant as a wife, and Jacob went to her. 5 And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. 6 📚✭And Rachel said, “God has given judgment for me, and has also heard my voice and given me a son”. Therefore she called his name Dan.
7 And Rachel’s maid Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. 8 📚✭And Rachel said, “I have struggled with my sister with great struggles, and I have won”. And she called his name Naphtali.
9 📚When Leah saw that she had stopped bearing children, she took her maid Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. 10 And Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a son. 11 📚And Leah said, “A troop is coming”. And she called his name Gad.
12 And Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. 13 📚And Leah said, “I am happy✭, for the daughters will call me blessed”. And she called his name Asher.
14 📚At the time of the wheat harvest, Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes✭”.
15 📚And she said to her, “Is it a small matter that you have taken my husband? And would you take away my son’s mandrakes also?” And Rachel said, “Therefore he will 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 to me, for I have certainly hired you with my son’s mandrakes”. And he lay with her that night.
17 📚✭And God listened to Leah and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. 18 📚And Leah said, “God has given me my wages because I have given my maid servant✭ to my husband”. And she called his name Issachar.
19 And Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. 20 📚✭And Leah said, “God has granted me a good gift. Now my husband will stay with me, because I have borne him six sons”. And she called his name Zebulun.
21 📚✭And afterwards she bore a daughter, and called her name Dinah.
22 📚And God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her, and opened her womb. 23 📚And she conceived and bore a son and said, “God has taken away my reproach✭”. 24 📚✭And she called his name Joseph, saying, “The LORD will add to me another son”.
Jacob and Laban – two deceivers
25 📚And it came about, when Rachel had given birth to Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, so 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 which I have rendered you”.
27 📚And Laban said to him, “Please, if I have found favour in your eyes, stay here. I have learned by experience that the LORD has blessed me on your account✭”. 28 📚And he said, “Tell me your wages, and I will pay them”.
29 📚And he said to him, “You know how I have served you, and how your cattle was with me. 30 📚For you had little before I came, and it is now increased enormously. And the LORD has blessed you since my coming. But 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 and keep your flock: 32 📚I will go through your whole flock today, removing from it all the speckled and spotted sheep, and all the dark-coloured ones among the lambs, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and these will be my wages. 33 📚So my righteousness will testify for me in the coming days, when you come concerning my wages: among the goats every one with me that is not speckled and spotted, and dark-coloured among the lambs, that will be counted as stolen”.
34 📚And Laban said, “Right. Let it be according to your word”. 35 📚✭And that very day he removed the male goats that were streaked and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, and every one that had some white in it, and all the dark-coloured ones among the lambs, and gave them into the hand of his sons. 36 And he put a three-days journey between himself and Jacob. And Jacob tended the rest of Laban’s flocks.
37 📚✭Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar, almond and plane trees, and peeled them in white strips, making the white in the rods appear. 38 And he set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the channels in the watering troughs, when the flocks came to drink. And they mated when they came to drink. 39 📚So the flocks mated in front of the rods and they bore streaked, speckled and spotted young. 40 And Jacob separated the lambs, and made the flocks face toward all the streaked and dark-coloured ones in the flock of Laban. And he put his own flocks by themselves and did not put them among the flocks belonging to Laban. 41 And it came about that whenever the stronger ones of the flock mated, Jacob placed the rods in front of the eyes of the flock in the water channels, so that they might mate near the rods. 42 But he did not place the rods there if the animals in the flock were weak. So the weaker ones were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s. 43 📚And the man greatly increased in wealth, and had many flocks, female servants, male servants, camels and donkeys.