Genesis 30:24-43 (NRSV)
When Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, "Send
me away, that I may go to my own home and country. Give me my wives and my
children for whom I have served you, and let me go; for you know very well
the service I have given you." But Laban said to him, "If you will
allow me to say so, I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed
me because of you; name your wages, and I will give it." Jacob said
to him, "You yourself know how I have served you, and how your cattle
have fared with me. For you had little before I came, and it has increased
abundantly; and the LORD has blessed you wherever I turned. But now when
shall I provide for my own household also?" He said, "What shall
I give you?" Jacob said, "You shall not give me anything; if you
will do this for me, I will again feed your flock and keep it: let me
pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted
sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats;
and such shall be my wages. So my honesty will answer for me later, when
you come to look into my wages with you. Every one that is not speckled and
spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall
be counted stolen." Laban said, "Good! Let it be as you have said."
But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted,
and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had
white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in charge of his
sons; and he set a distance of three days' journey between himself and Jacob,
while Jacob was pasturing the rest of Laban's flock.
Then
Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane, and peeled white streaks
in them, exposing the white of the rods. He set the rods that he had peeled
in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where
the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, the
flocks bred in front of the rods, and so the flocks produced young that were
striped, speckled, and spotted. Jacob separated the lambs, and set the faces
of the flocks toward the striped and the completely black animals in the
flock of Laban; and he put his own droves apart, and did not put them with
Laban's flock. Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob laid
the rods in the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed
among the rods, but for the feebler of the flock he did not lay them there;
so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's. Thus the man grew
exceedingly rich, and had large flocks, and male and female slaves, and camels
and donkeys.
ELCA's daily Bible readings are chosen from
"Revised
Common Lectionary Daily Readings," prepared by Consultation
on the Common Texts, © 2005.
All text is from the New Revised Standard
Version Bible, copyrighted, 1989 by the Division
of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches USA,
and is used by permission. All rights reserved.
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