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GenesisChapter 31

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Jacob heard that Laban's sons were saying, "Jacob has taken everything that belonged to our father, and out of what was our father's he has built up all this wealth."
And Jacob saw from Laban's face that he was no longer disposed toward him as before.
Then the LORD said to Jacob, "Return to the land of your fathers, to your kindred, and I will be with you."
So Jacob sent word and called Rachel and Leah out to the field where his flock was,
and he said to them, "I can see from your father's face that he is not disposed toward me as before. But the God of my father has been with me.
You yourselves know that I have served your father with all my strength,
yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times over. But God did not let him harm me.
If he said, 'The speckled ones will be your wages,' then the whole flock bore speckled young; and if he said, 'The striped ones will be your wages,' then the whole flock bore striped young.
So God has taken away your father's livestock and given it to me.
Once, when the flocks were breeding, I looked up and saw in a dream that the male goats mounting the flock were striped, speckled, and mottled.
And the angel of God said to me in the dream, 'Jacob!' I answered, 'Here I am.'
He said, 'Look up and see: all the male goats mounting the flock are striped, speckled, and mottled, for I have seen everything Laban has been doing to you.
I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me. Now get up, leave this land, and return to the land of your birth.'"
Then Rachel and Leah answered him, "Do we still have any share or inheritance in our father's house?
Are we not treated as strangers by him? He sold us, and then he devoured our purchase price.
Surely all the wealth God has taken from our father belongs to us and to our children. So do whatever God has told you."
Then Jacob set out. He put his children and his wives on the camels,
and drove off all his livestock, along with all the possessions he had accumulated—the livestock he had acquired in Paddan-aram—to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan.
Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole her father's household gods.
So he fled with all he had. He crossed the River—that is, the Euphrates—and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.
On the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled.
He took his kinsmen with him and pursued Jacob for seven days, catching up with him in the hill country of Gilead.
But that night God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream and said to him, "Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad."
Laban overtook Jacob, who had pitched his tent in the hill country; Laban and his kinsmen camped there in the hill country of Gilead as well.
Laban said to Jacob, "What have you done? You have deceived me and carried off my daughters like captives taken in war.
Why did you run away in secret and deceive me instead of telling me? I would have sent you off with rejoicing and singing, with tambourine and lyre.
You did not even let me kiss my grandchildren and my daughters goodbye. What a foolish thing you have done!
I have the power to do you harm, but last night the God of your father said to me, 'Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.'
Now you have gone off because you longed for your father's house—but why did you steal my gods?"
Jacob answered Laban, "I was afraid; I thought you would take your daughters from me by force.
But if you find anyone here with your gods, that person shall not live. In the presence of our kinsmen, identify anything of yours that I have, and take it." For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.
So Laban went into Jacob's tent, and into Leah's tent, and into the tent of the two servant women, but found nothing. When he came out of Leah's tent, he entered Rachel's tent.
But Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in the camel's saddle and was sitting on them. Laban searched through the whole tent but found nothing.
She said to her father, "Do not be angry, my lord, that I cannot rise before you; I am having my period." So he searched but did not find the household gods.
Then Jacob became angry and confronted Laban. "What is my offense?" he said. "What sin have I committed that you hunt me down like this?
You have searched through all my belongings. What have you found of your household goods? Set it here in front of my kinsmen and yours, and let them judge between the two of us.
Twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your goats never miscarried, and I never ate a ram from your flock.
I never brought you an animal torn by beasts; I bore the loss myself. You demanded it from my hand, whether stolen by day or stolen by night.
The heat consumed me by day and the cold by night, and sleep fled from my eyes.
For twenty years I have been in your household. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks, and you changed my wages ten times over.
If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would surely have sent me away empty-handed. But God saw my hardship and the labor of my hands, and last night he rendered judgment."
Laban answered Jacob, "The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks—everything you see is mine. Yet what can I do today about these daughters of mine, or about the children they have borne?
Jacob said to his kinsmen, "Gather stones." So they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there beside the heap.
Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, and Jacob called it Galeed.[^1] [^1]: Both names mean "heap of witness"—the first in Aramaic, the second in Hebrew.
Laban said, "This heap is a witness between you and me today." That is why it was named Galeed.
It was also called Mizpah, because he said, "May the LORD keep watch between you and me when we are out of each other's sight.
If you mistreat my daughters, or take other wives besides them—though no one is with us—remember that God is a witness between you and me."
Laban also said to Jacob, "Here is this heap, and here is this pillar I have set up between you and me.
This heap is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, that I will not go past this heap to your side, and that you will not go past this heap and this pillar to my side, to do harm.
May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us." And Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac.
Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and invited his kinsmen to eat a meal. They ate and spent the night on the mountain.
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