Study Desk

So Jacob got up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had placed as a support for his head, and set it up as a memorial stone, and poured oil on its top.

Jacob also made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and give me food to eat and garments to wear,

"And this stone, which I have set up as a memorial stone, will be God's house, and of everything that You give me I will assuredly give a tenth to You."

He looked, and saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it, because they watered the flocks from that well. Now the stone on the mouth of the well was large.

While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she was a shepherdess.

Jacob told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and that he was Rebekah's son, and she ran and told her father.

And Laban said to him, "You certainly are my bone and my flesh." And he stayed with him a month.

So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him like only a few days because of his love for her.

So Laban gathered all the people of the place and held a feast.

Laban also gave his female slave Zilpah to his daughter Leah as a slave.

Leah conceived and gave birth to a son, and named him Reuben, for she said, "Because the LORD has seen my affliction; surely now my husband will love me."

Then she conceived again and gave birth to a son, and said, "Because the LORD has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also." So she named him Simeon.

And she conceived again and gave birth to a son, and said, "Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons." Therefore he was named Levi.

And she conceived again and gave birth to a son, and said, "This time I will praise the LORD." Therefore she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children.

Then she said, "Here is my female slave Bilhah: have relations with her that she may give birth on my knees, so that by her I too may obtain a child."

So she gave him her slave Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob had relations with her.

Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son.

Then Rachel said, "God has vindicated me, and has indeed heard my voice and has given me a son." Therefore she named him Dan.

And Rachel's slave Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.

When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her slave Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.