Genesis 31:22-55 ▼

22 And it is told to Laban on the third day that Jacob has fled,

23 and he takes his brothers with him, and pursues after him a journey of seven days, and overtakes him in the Mount of Gilead.

24 And God comes to Laban the Aramean in a dream of the night and says to him, “Take heed to yourself lest you speak with Jacob from good to evil.”

25 And Laban overtakes Jacob; and Jacob has fixed his tent in the mountain; and Laban with his brothers have fixed [theirs] in the Mount of Gilead.

26 And Laban says to Jacob, “What have you done that you deceive my heart, and lead away my daughters as captives of the sword?

27 Why have you hidden yourself to flee, and deceive me, and have not declared to me, and I send you away with joy and with songs, with tambourine and with harp,

28 and have not permitted me to kiss my sons and my daughters? Now you have acted foolishly in doing [so];

29 my hand is to God to do evil with you, but the God of your father last night has spoken to me, saying, Take heed to yourself from speaking with Jacob from good to evil.

30 And now, you have certainly gone, because you have been very desirous for the house of your father; why have you stolen my gods?”

31 And Jacob answers and says to Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I said, Lest you violently take away your daughters from me;

32 with whomsoever you find your gods—he must not live; before our brothers discern for yourself what [is] with me, and take to yourself”: and Jacob has not known that Rachel has stolen them.

33 And Laban goes into the tent of Jacob, and into the tent of Leah, and into the tent of the two handmaidens, and has not found; and he goes out from the tent of Leah, and goes into the tent of Rachel.

34 And Rachel has taken the teraphim, and puts them in the furniture of the camel, and sits on them; and Laban feels all the tent, and has not found;

35 and she says to her father, “Let it not be displeasing in the eyes of my lord that I am not able to rise at your presence, for the way of women [is] on me”; and he searches, and has not found the teraphim.

36 And it is displeasing to Jacob, and he strives with Laban; and Jacob answers and says to Laban, “What [is] my transgression? What my sin, that you have burned after me?

37 For you have felt all my vessels: what have you found of all the vessels of your house? Set here before my brothers, and your brothers, and they decide between us both.

38 These twenty years I [am] with you: your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, and the rams of your flock I have not eaten;

39 the torn I have not brought to you—I repay it—from my hand you seek it; I have been deceived by day, and I have been deceived by night;

40 I have been [thus]: drought has consumed me in the day, and frost by night, and my sleep wanders from my eyes.

41 This [is] to me twenty years in your house: I have served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock; and you change my hire ten times;

42 unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the Fear of Isaac, had been for me, surely now you had sent me away empty; God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and reproves last night.”

43 And Laban answers and says to Jacob, “The daughters [are] my daughters, and the sons my sons, and the flock my flock, and all that you are seeing [is] mine; and to my daughters—what do I to these today, or to their sons whom they have born?

44 And now, come, let us make a covenant, I and you, and it has been for a witness between me and you.”

45 And Jacob takes a stone, and lifts it up [for] a standing pillar;

46 and Jacob says to his brothers, “Gather stones,” and they take stones, and make a heap; and they eat there on the heap;

47 and Laban calls it Jegar-Sahadutha; and Jacob has called it Galeed.

48 And Laban says, “This heap [is] witness between me and you today”; therefore has he called its name Galeed;

49 Mizpah also, for he said, “YHWH watches between me and you, for we are hidden from one another;

50 if you afflict my daughters, or take wives beside my daughters—there is no man with us—see, God [is] witness between me and you.”

51 And Laban says to Jacob, “Behold, this heap, and behold, the standing pillar which I have cast between me and you;

52 this heap [is] witness, and the standing pillar [is] witness, that I do not pass over this heap to you, and that you do not pass over this heap and this standing pillar to me—for evil;

53 the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, judges between us—the God of their father,” and Jacob swears by the Fear of his father Isaac.

54 And Jacob sacrifices a sacrifice on the mountain, and calls to his brothers to eat bread, and they eat bread, and lodge on the mountain;

55 and Laban rises early in the morning, and kisses his sons and his daughters, and blesses them; and Laban goes on, and turns back to his place.