1When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she became jealous of her sister, and so she said to Jacob, “Give me sons or I shall die.” 2Jacob became angry and said to her, “Is it my fault that God has deprived you of children?” 3She then said, “Here is my servant Bilhah; sleep with her so that she may give birth on my knees; so the child will be mine.” 4And she gave Bilhah her servant as wife to Jacob. 5She became pregnant and bore him a son. 6Rachel then said, “God has done me justice! He has heard my prayer and given me a son. That is why she named him Dan. 7Bilhah, Rachel’s servant, bore a second son to Jacob. 8And Rachel said, “I have had a mighty struggle with my sister and I have won!” And so she named her son Naphtali.
9When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her servant, Zilpah, and gave her to Jacob as a wife. 10Zilpah gave birth to a son for Jacob. 11Leah said “How fortunate!” and named him Gad. 12Leah’s servant bore a second son to Jacob. 13Leah said, “How happy I am! Women will call me happy.” So she named him Asher.
14At the time of the wheat harvest, Reuben went out to the fields and found some mandrake plants which he brought to his mother, Leah. Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.” 15But Leah replied, “Isn’t it enough for you to have taken my husband? Now you want to take my son’s mandrakes as well!” Rachel then said, “He will sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.”
16In the evening when Jacob came in from the fields Leah went to meet him and said, “You will sleep with me tonight for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes!” So he slept with her that night. 17Yahweh heard Leah, and she became pregnant and bore Jacob a fifth son. 18Leah said, “God has given me my reward because I gave my maidservant to my husband.” She named the child Issachar.
19Leah bore another son to Jacob. 20Then she said, “God has offered me a beautiful gift; this time my husband will honor me for I have given him six children.” She named the child Zebulun. 21She later gave birth to a daughter and called her Dinah.
22Then Yahweh remembered Rachel and let her have a child. 23She became pregnant and gave birth to a son. “Yahweh has taken away my shame,” she said. 24And she called the child Joseph saying,“May Yahweh give me another son.”
Other legends
25After Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Let me go, so that I may return to my homeland. 26Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, and let me go, for you know how well I have served you.” 27Laban said, “If I have won your friendship… I have learned from signs that Yahweh has blessed me because of you.” 28He then added, “Say what you want for wages and I will pay you.” 29Jacob said, “You know how well I have served you and how your cattle have prospered with me. 30For you had little when I came, but since I have been with you there has been a considerable increase and Yahweh has blessed you. But now, when am I to do something for my own household?” 31Laban asked, “What shall I give you?”
Jacob replied, “You will give me nothing, but if you do for me what I ask, I will continue to pasture and look after your flock. 32Today I shall go through your flock removing from it every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats; these shall be my wages. 33My honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages. Any goat among my herd that is not spotted or speckled, any lamb found among the sheep in my possession that is not black will be counted as stolen.” 34Laban said, “Agreed, it will be as you say.”
35That same day Laban put aside the he-goats that were streaked, every one that had white on it, and all the black sheep. These he handed over to his sons 36and he put a distance of a three days’ journey between himself and Jacob. So Jacob looked after the rest of Laban’s flock.
37Jacob then gathered fresh branches of poplar, almond and plane. He peeled white streaks in them, letting the white of the stems be seen. 38Then he placed the branches he had peeled in front of the channels of the watering troughs where the animals came to drink and where they could be clearly seen by the animals. And as they mated there in front of the branches when they came to drink, 39the animals produced streaked, spotted and speckled young. 40He put the sheep apart but made the rest face the streaked and dark colored animals that belonged to Laban. In this way he built up droves of his own and did not add them to Laban’s flock. 41Whenever the stronger of the ewes were breeding, Jacob put the branches in the channels in front of the eyes of the ewes so that they would mate there among the branches. 42But for the feebler ewes he did not put them there so that the feebler were for Laban and the more robust for Jacob. 43In this way he became extremely rich with a great number of sheep, maidservants and menservants, camels and donkeys.
