Study Desk

"So God has taken away your father's livestock and given them to me.

"Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, 'Jacob'; and I said, 'Here I am.'

'I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a memorial stone, where you made a vow to Me; now arise, leave this land, and return to the land of your birth.'"

Then Laban said to Jacob, "What have you done by deceiving me and carrying away my daughters like captives of the sword?

"Why did you flee secretly and deceive me, and did not tell me, so that I might have sent you away with joy and with songs, with tambourine and with lyre;

and did not allow me to kiss my grandchildren and my daughters? Now you have done foolishly.

"It is in my power to do you harm, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, 'Be careful not to speak either good or bad to Jacob.'

Then Jacob replied to Laban, "Because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force.

And she said to her father, "May my lord not be angry that I cannot stand in your presence, because the way of women is upon me." So he searched but did not find the household idols.

Then Jacob became angry and argued with Laban; and Jacob said to Laban, "What is my offense? What is my sin that you have hotly pursued me?

"This is how I was: by day the heat consumed me and the frost by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes.

"If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac, had not been for me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, so He rendered judgment last night."

"So now come, let's make a covenant, you and I, and it shall be a witness between you and me."

Laban said, "This heap is a witness between you and me this day." Therefore it was named Galeed,

and Mizpah, for he said, "May the LORD keep watch between you and me when we are absent one from the other.

"If you mistreat my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no one is with us, see, God is witness between you and me."

Laban also said to Jacob, "Behold this heap and behold the memorial stone which I have set between you and me.

"This heap is a witness, and the memorial stone is a witness, that I will not pass by this heap to you for harm, and you will not pass by this heap and this memorial stone to me, for harm.

Then Jacob said, "God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, LORD, who said to me, 'Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will make you prosper,'

"Save me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, that he will come and attack me and the mothers with the children.