Genesis / Jacob’s Prosperity

Jacob’s Prosperity

Genesis 30:25-43

Chapter 30

²⁵ And when Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, "Send me away so that I may go to my place and to my land." ²⁶ Give me my wives and my children, with whom I have served you, and I will go; for you know the service with which I have served you. ²⁷ And Laban said to him, "If now I have found favor in your eyes, I have divined, and the LORD has blessed me on account of you." ²⁸ And he said, "Appoint your wages for me, and I will give it." ²⁹ And he said to him, "You know how you have served me and how your livestock has been with me." ³⁰ For you had little before me, and it has burst forth to much, and the LORD has blessed you at my feet. And now, when shall I also do for my house? ³¹ And he said, "What will you give me?" And Jacob said, "Do not give me anything. If you do this thing for me, I will return, I will shepherd your flock, and I will keep it." ³² I will pass through all your flock today. Remove from there every speckled and spotted ram and every brown ram among the sheep, and every spotted and speckled one among the goats, and it will be my reward. ³³ She will answer for me, my righteousness on the day tomorrow. For when you come upon my wages before you, every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and dark among the sheep—it is stolen from me. ³⁴ And Laban said, "Look, it shall be according to your word." ³⁵ And he removed on that day the streaked he-goats and the spotted ones and all the speckled she-goats and the spotted ones—all that Laban had in it—and all the brown ones in the rams, and he gave them into the hand of his sons. ³⁶ And he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban's sheep. ³⁷ And Jacob took for himself a rod of white poplar and almond and plane tree, and he peeled them, making white peelings that revealed the white which is on the rods. ³⁸ And he set the sticks that he had peeled with streaks before the eyes of the flock in the troughs of the waters where the flock would come to drink, and they would be in heat when they came to drink. ³⁹ And the flock grew hot toward the staffs, and the flock gave birth to streaked, speckled, and spotted offspring. ⁴⁰ And Jacob separated the rams and made the flock face the streaked ones, as well as all the brown ones in Laban's flock. And he set his own flocks apart and did not put them with Laban's flock. ⁴¹ And it was whenever the flock was in heat—the ones coupling—and Jacob put the rods before the eyes of the flock in the gutters for them to conceive in the rods. ⁴² And during the mating heat of the flock, he did not use them. So the stronger ones belonged to Laban, and the weaker ones to Jacob. ⁴³ And the man became very very rich, and he had many flocks and maidservants and menservants and camels and donkeys.