Genesis 31

¹After he heard the words of Laban's sons saying: Jacob hath taken all that was our father's, and being enriched of his substance, is become great:

²and perceiving also Laban's countenance, that it was not towards him as yesterday and the other day,

³especially our Lord saying to him: Return into the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred, and I will be with thee;

⁴he sent, and called Rachel and Lia into the field where he fed the flocks,

⁵and said to them: I see your father's countenance that it is not towards me as yesterday and the other day: and the God of my father hath been with me.

⁶And yourselves know that I have served your father to the uttermost of my power.

⁷Yea your father also hath circumvented me, and hath changed my wages ten times: and yet God hath not suffered him to hurt me.

⁸If at any time he said: They of diverse colours shall be thy wages; all the sheep brought forth young of diverse colours. But when he said contrary: Thou shalt take all the white ones for thy wages; all the flocks brought forth white ones.

⁹And God hath taken your father's substance, and given it to me.

¹⁰For after the time came of the ewes conceiving, I lifted up mine eyes, and saw in my sleep the males ascending upon the females of diverse colours, and the spotted, and the speckled.

¹¹And the Angel of God said to me in sleep: Jacob? And I answered: Here I am.

¹²Who said: Lift up thine eyes, and see all the males ascending upon the females, them of diverse colours, the spotted and the speckled. For I have seen all things that Laban hath done to thee.

¹³I am the God of Bethel, where thou didst anoint the stone, and didst vow the vow unto me. Now therefore arise, and go out of this land, returning into the land of thy nativity.

¹⁴And Rachel and Lia answered: Have we any thing left in the goods and heritage of our father's house?

¹⁵Hath he not reputed us as strangers, and sold us, and eaten up the price of us?

¹⁶But God hath taken our father's riches, and delivered them to us, and to our children: wherefore do all things that God hath commanded thee.

¹⁷Jacob therefore rose up, and setting his children and wives upon camels, went his way.

¹⁸And he took all his substance, and flocks, and whatsoever he had gotten in Mesopotamia, and went forward to Isaac his father into the land of Chanaan.

¹⁹At that time Laban was gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole the idols of her father.

²⁰And Jacob would not confess to his father in law that he fled.

²¹And when he was gone as well himself as all things that were his right, & having passed the river was marching on to the Mount Galaad,

²²it was told Laban the third day that Jacob fled.

²³Who, taking his brethren unto him, pursued him seven days: and he overtook him in the Mount Galaad.

²⁴And he saw in his sleep God saying unto him: Take heed thou speak not roughly any thing against Jacob.

²⁵And Jacob had now pitched his tent in the mountain: and when he with his brethren had overtaken him, he pitched his tent in the same Mount Galaad.

²⁶And he said to Jacob: Why didst thou so, that unwitting to me thou wouldst carry away my daughters as captives with the sword?

²⁷Why wouldst thou fly without my knowledge, and not tell me, that I might have brought thee on the way with joy, and songs, and timbrels, and citterns?

²⁸Thou hast not suffered me to kiss my sons and daughters: thou hast done foolishly: now also indeed,

²⁹my hand is able to requite thee evil: but the God of your father said unto me yesterday: Take heed thou speak not any thing against Jacob roughly.

³⁰Suppose thou didst desire to go to thy friends, and hadst a longing to thy father's house, why didst thou steal my gods?

³¹Jacob answered: In that I departed unwitting to thee, I feared lest thou wouldst take away thy daughters by force.

³²But whereas thou chargest me with theft; with whom soever thou shalt find thy gods, let him be slain before our brethren: search whatsoever of thy things thou shalt find with me, and take away. Saying this, he knew not that Rachel had stolen the idols.

³³Laban therefore having gone into the tent of Jacob, and of Lia, and of both the handmaids, found them not. And when he was entered into Rachel's tent,

³⁴she in haste hid the idols under the camel's litter, and sat thereupon: and when he had sought all the tent, and found nothing,

³⁵she said: Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise up before thee, because according to the custom of women it is now chanced to me. So his carefulness in seeking was deluded.

³⁶And Jacob being angry said in chiding manner: For what fault of mine, and for what offence of my part hast thou so chased after me,

³⁷and searched all my household-stuff? What hast thou found of all the substance of thy house? Lay it here before my brethren, and thy brethren, and let them judge between me and thee.

³⁸Have I therefore been with thee twenty years? Thy ewes and goats were not barren, the wethers of thy flock I did not eat:

³⁹neither that which the beast had caught did I shew to thee, I made good all the damage: whatsoever perished by theft thou didst exact it of me:

⁴⁰day and night was I parched with heat, and with frost, & sleep did fly from mine eyes.

⁴¹And in this sort have I served thee in thy house twenty years, fourteen for thy daughters, and six for thy flocks: thou hast changed also my wages ten times.

⁴²Unless the God of my father Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had holpen me, peradventure now thou hadst sent me away naked: God beheld my affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesterday.

⁴³Laban answered him: The daughters are mine and the children, and thy flocks, and all things that thou seest are mine: what can I do to my daughters, and nephews?

⁴⁴Come therefore, let us enter in league: that it may be for a testimony between me and thee.

⁴⁵Jacob therefore took a stone, and erected it for a title:

⁴⁶and he said to his brethren: Bring hither stones. Who gathering them together made a heap, and they did eat upon it:

⁴⁷Which Laban called the witness-heap: and Jacob called the hillock of testimony, either of men according to the property of his language.

⁴⁸And Laban said: This heap shall be a witness between me and thee this day, and therefore the name thereof was called Galaad, that is, The witness-heap.

⁴⁹Our Lord behold and judge us when we shall be departed one from the other,

⁵⁰if thou shalt afflict my daughters, and if thou bring in other wives over them; none is witness of our talk but God, who is present and beholdeth.

⁵¹And he said again to Jacob: Behold this heap, and the stone which I have erected between me and thee,

⁵²shall be a witness: this heap, I say, and the stone, be they for a testimony, if either I shall pass beyond it going towards thee, or thou shalt pass beyond it, thinking harm to me.

⁵³The God of Abraham, and the God of Nachor judge between us, the God of their father, Jacob therefore sware by the fear of his father Isaac:

⁵⁴and after he had offered victims in the mountain, he called his brethren to eat bread. Who when they had eaten, lodged there.

⁵⁵but Laban arising in the night, kissed his sons, and daughters, and blessed them: and returned unto his place.