Jacob flees and Laban overtakes him at Mount Gilead

AI-assisted comparison with the cited narrative; not independent historical verification.

• GEN 31:17–43, engwebp

  ¹⁷Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and his wives on the camels,

  ¹⁸and he took away all his livestock, and all his possessions which he had gathered, including the livestock which he had gained in Paddan Aram, to go to Isaac his father, to the land of Canaan.

  ¹⁹Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep; and Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father’s.

  ²⁰Jacob deceived Laban the Syrian, in that he didn’t tell him that he was running away.

  ²¹So he fled with all that he had. He rose up, passed over the River, and set his face toward the mountain of Gilead.

  ²²Laban was told on the third day that Jacob had fled.

  ²³He took his relatives with him, and pursued him seven days’ journey. He overtook him in the mountain of Gilead.

  ²⁴God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream of the night, and said to him, “Be careful that you don’t speak to Jacob either good or bad.”

  ²⁵Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountain, and Laban with his relatives encamped in the mountain of Gilead.

  ²⁶Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done, that you have deceived me, and carried away my daughters like captives of the sword?

  ²⁷Why did you flee secretly, and deceive me, and didn’t tell me, that I might have sent you away with mirth and with songs, with tambourine and with harp;

  ²⁸and didn’t allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters? Now you have done foolishly.

  ²⁹It is in the power of my hand to hurt you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful that you don’t speak to Jacob either good or bad.’

  ³⁰Now, you want to be gone, because you greatly longed for your father’s house, but why have you stolen my gods?”

  ³¹Jacob answered Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I said, ‘Lest you should take your daughters from me by force.’

  ³²Anyone you find your gods with shall not live. Before our relatives, discern what is yours with me, and take it.” For Jacob didn’t know that Rachel had stolen them.

  ³³Laban went into Jacob’s tent, into Leah’s tent, and into the tent of the two female servants; but he didn’t find them. He went out of Leah’s tent, and entered into Rachel’s tent.

  ³⁴Now Rachel had taken the teraphim, put them in the camel’s saddle, and sat on them. Laban felt around all the tent, but didn’t find them.

  ³⁵She said to her father, “Don’t let my lord be angry that I can’t rise up before you; for I’m having my period.” He searched, but didn’t find the teraphim.

  ³⁶Jacob was angry, and argued with Laban. Jacob answered Laban, “What is my trespass? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued me?

  ³⁷Now that you have felt around in all my stuff, what have you found of all your household stuff? Set it here before my relatives and your relatives, that they may judge between us two.

  ³⁸“These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not cast their young, and I haven’t eaten the rams of your flocks.

  ³⁹That which was torn of animals, I didn’t bring to you. I bore its loss. Of my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night.

  ⁴⁰This was my situation: in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from my eyes.

  ⁴¹These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times.

  ⁴²Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night.”

  ⁴³Laban answered Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine! What can I do today to these my daughters, or to their children whom they have borne?

  Publisher textRights & provenance