Study Desk

He set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the drinking troughs, that is, in the watering channels where the flocks came to drink; and they mated when they came to drink.

"Though you have searched through all my property, what have you found of all your household property? Set it here in front of my relatives and your relatives, so that they may decide between the two of us.

Then Laban replied to Jacob, "The daughters are my daughters, the children are my grandchildren, the flocks are my flocks, and everything that you see is mine. But what can I do this day to these daughters of mine or to their children to whom they have given birth?

Jacob said to his relatives, "Gather stones." So they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap.

Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain, and called his relatives to the meal; and they ate the meal and spent the night on the mountain.

Then Esau ran to meet him and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.

Then the slave women came forward with their children, and they bowed down.

And Leah likewise came forward with her children, and they bowed down; and afterward Joseph came forward with Rachel, and they bowed down.

But he said to him, "My lord knows that the children are frail and that the flocks and herds that are nursing are a matter of concern to me. And if they are driven hard just one day, all the flocks will die.

Now the sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard about it; and the men were grieved, and they were very angry because he had done a disgraceful thing in Israel by sleeping with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing ought not to be done.

"Will their livestock and their property and all their animals not be ours? Let's just consent to them, and they will live with us."

Now it came about on the third day, when they were in pain, that two of Jacob's sons—Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers—each took his sword and came upon the city undetected, and killed every male.

They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah from Shechem's house, and left.

Jacob's sons came upon those killed and looted the city, because they had defiled their sister.

They took their flocks, their herds, and their donkeys, and that which was in the city and that which was in the field;

and they captured and looted all their wealth and all their little ones and their wives, even everything that was in the houses.

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have brought trouble on me by making me repulsive among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and since my men are few in number, they will band together against me and attack me, and I will be destroyed, I and my household!"

So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods which they had and the rings which were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak which was near Shechem.

As they journeyed, there was a great terror upon the cities which were around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob.

Then they journeyed on from Bethel; but when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and she suffered severe difficulties in her labor.