Bilhah's sons
1When Rachel saw that she could not have children for Jacob, she became jealous of her sister Leah. Rachel said to Jacob: ‘Give me children or I will die.’
2Jacob became angry with Rachel and said: ‘I am not God. He is the One who does not want you to have children.’
3Rachel said to Jacob: ‘Take my servant girl Bilhah and sleep with her. The baby that she will have will be my child and my family can come from her.’
4Rachel gave her servant girl Bilhah to Jacob, and he had sex with her. 5Bilhah became pregnant and she had a son for Jacob. 6Then Rachel said: ‘God has done a good thing for me. He listened to my prayer and He gave me a son.’ She named this son Dan.
7Rachel's servant girl Bilhah became pregnant again and she had another son for Jacob. 8Then Rachel said: ‘My sister and I both wanted to win, but I have won.’ So she named her son Naphtali.
Zilpah's sons
9Leah could not have any more children. She took her servant girl Zilpah and gave her to Jacob to sleep with. 10Leah's servant girl Zilpah had a son for Jacob 11and Leah said: ‘I am happy.’ So she named him Gad.
12Then Leah's servant girl had another son for Jacob. 13Leah said: ‘I am happy. The women will say I am very happy.’ So she named her son Asher.
Leah has another 2 sons and a daughter
14When the time came to harvest the wheat, Reuben found love-apples in the field and he gave them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah: ‘Please give me some of your son's love-apples.’
15Leah said to her: ‘You have already taken my husband. Now you want to take my son's love-apples. No.’
Then Rachel said: ‘If you give me your son's love-apples, I will let Jacob sleep with you tonight.’ 16When Jacob came home from the field that evening, Leah went to him and said: ‘You must sleep with me tonight because I have paid for you with my son's love-apples.’
Jacob had sex with Leah that night 17and God listened to Leah's prayer and she became pregnant again. She had a 5th son for Jacob. 18Then Leah said: ‘God was good to me. He rewarded me because I gave my servant girl to my husband to have a child.’ So she named her son Issachar.
19Leah became pregnant again and she had a 6th son for Jacob. 20Then Leah said: ‘God gave me a great gift. Now my husband will stay with me and he will remember that I am his wife, because we have 6 sons.’ She named her son Zebulun. 21Then Leah had a daughter and she named her Dinah.
Rachel has a son
22The Lord remembered Rachel and He listened to her prayer. 23She became pregnant and had a son. She said: ‘God has helped me and I am not ashamed anymore.’ 24She named him Joseph and said: ‘I pray that the Lord will give me another son.’
Jacob becomes very rich
25When Joseph was born, Jacob said to Laban: ‘Let me go to my own place and my own land. 26Give me my wives and my children and let me go. You know that I have worked for you to get them.’
27But Laban said to him: ‘I will be happy if you stay with me because I have seen that the Lord blesses you. 28Tell me how much I must pay you and I will give it to you if you stay.’
29Then Jacob said to Laban: ‘You know how hard I have worked and how many more cattle and sheep you have got from the time that I started to look after them. 30You had a few sheep before I started working for you, but they became much more. The Lord has blessed you from the time that I came here. But when can I start to work for my own family?’
31Then Laban said to him: ‘What must I give you?’ Jacob said to Laban: ‘You do not have to pay me. I will look after your sheep and goats again, but there is one thing that you must give me. 32I will look at all your sheep and I will take all the sheep that have spots and stripes on them and all the black lambs. And I will take all the goats that have spots and stripes on them. This is what you must give me to work for you.
33Then you will see that I am honest. When you come later to see which animals are mine, you will easily see that all the goats that do not have spots and stripes, and all the lambs that are not black, are your sheep and goats. If you find any of those sheep or goats among my animals, then you will know that I have stolen them from you.’
34Laban said: ‘Yes, we will do what you have said.’
35But on that day Laban took away all the goats with spots and stripes and he chased them away from the others and kept them at another place. He also gave all the goats that had white parts and all the black lambs to his sons to take care of. 36He told them to take those animals away from him, as far as they could walk in 3 days. Jacob stayed to look after the other sheep of Laban.
37When Jacob saw what had happened, he took green sticks from poplar trees, almond trees and plane trees. He cut away parts of the bark so that there were white stripes on the sticks. 38He took the sticks and put them where the animals went to drink water. The sticks were in front of the sheep and goats when they came to drink water. 39When the sheep and goats mated there near the sticks, their lambs were born with spots and stripes.
40Jacob took the sheep rams away from the others and he let the sheep and goats look at Laban's sheep with spots and stripes. That is how Jacob got a lot of sheep and goats for himself but he did not put them with Laban's sheep. 41Every time the strong sheep and goat-rams wanted to mate, Jacob put the sticks in front of them where they drank water so that they could mate only there at the sticks. 42But if the sheep or goats were weak, then Jacob did not put the sticks where they drank water. That is how Laban got all the weak lambs and Jacob got all the strong lambs.
43In this way Jacob became very rich. He got lots of sheep, goats, servant girls, slaves, camels and donkeys.
