Genesis 31:39-55 ▼

39 That which was torn by wild beasts I did not bring to you; I bore the loss of it myself; of my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night.

40 It was like this with me: by day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes.

41 These twenty years I have been in your house; I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times.

42 If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night.”

43 Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do today about these daughters of mine, or about their children whom they have borne?

44 Come now, let us make a covenant, you and I; and let it be a witness between you and me.”

45 So Jacob took a stone, and set it up as a pillar.

46 And Jacob said to his kinsfolk, “Gather stones,” and they took stones, and made a heap; and they ate there by the heap.

47 Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha: but Jacob called it Galeed.

48 Laban said, “This heap is a witness between you and me today.” Therefore he called it Galeed,

49 and the pillar Mizpah, for he said, “The LORD watch between you and me, when we are absent one from the other.

50 If you ill-treat my daughters, or if you take wives in addition to my daughters, though no one else is with us, remember that God is witness between you and me.”

51 Then Laban said to Jacob, “See this heap and see the pillar, which I have set between you and me.

52 This heap is a witness, and the pillar is a witness, that I will not pass beyond this heap to you, and you will not pass beyond this heap and this pillar to me, for harm.

53 May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor”—the God of their father—“judge between us.” So Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac,

54 and Jacob offered a sacrifice on the height and called his kinsfolk to eat bread; and they ate bread and tarried all night in the hill country.

55 Early in the morning Laban rose up, and kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them; then he departed and returned home.