Genesis to Revelation
Bible Reading Plan
January 10
Genesis 30-32
Chapter 30
The Sons of Jacob
1 Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she became jealous
of her sister; and she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I die.”
2 Then Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in
the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”
3 She said, “Here is my maid Bilhah, go in to her that she may bear
on my knees, that through her I too may have children.”
4 So she gave him her maid Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her.
5 Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son.
6 Then Rachel said, “God has vindicated me, and has indeed heard my
voice and has given me a son.” Therefore she named him Dan.
7 Rachel’s maid Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.
8 So Rachel said, “With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister,
and I have indeed prevailed.” And she named him Naphtali.
9 When Leah saw that she had stopped bearing, she took her maid Zilpah and gave
her to Jacob as a wife.
10 Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a son.
11 Then Leah said, “How fortunate!” So she named him Gad.
12 Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a second son.
13 Then Leah said, “Happy am I! For women will call me happy.” So
she named him Asher.
14 Now in the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found mandrakes in the
field, and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Please
give me some of your son’s mandrakes.”
15 But she said to her, “Is it a small matter for you to take my husband?
And would you take my son’s mandrakes also?” So Rachel said, “Therefore
he may lie with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.”
16 When Jacob came in from the field in the evening, then Leah went out to meet
him and said, “You must come in to me, for I have surely hired you with
my son’s mandrakes.” So he lay with her that night.
17 God gave heed to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.
18 Then Leah said, “God has given me my wages because I gave my maid
to my husband.” So she named him Issachar.
19 Leah conceived again and bore a sixth son to Jacob.
20 Then Leah said, “God has endowed me with a good gift; now my husband
will dwell with me, because I have borne him six sons.” So she named
him Zebulun.
21 Afterward she bore a daughter and named her Dinah.
22 Then God remembered Rachel, and God gave heed to her and opened her womb.
23 So she conceived and bore a son and said, “God has taken away my reproach.”
24 She named him Joseph, saying, “May the Lord give me another son.”
Jacob Prospers
25 Now it came about when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, “Send
me away, that I may go to my own place and to my own country.
26 “Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and
let me depart; for you yourself know my service which I have rendered you.”
27 But Laban said to him, “If now it pleases you, stay with me; I have
divined that the Lord has blessed me on your account.”
28 He continued, “Name me your wages, and I will give it.”
29 But he said to him, “You yourself know how I have served you and how
your cattle have fared with me.
30 “For you had little before I came and it has increased to a multitude,
and the Lord has blessed you wherever I turned. But now, when shall I provide
for my own household also?”
31 So he said, “What shall I give you?” And Jacob said, “You
shall not give me anything. If you will do this one thing for me, I will again
pasture and keep your flock:
32 let me pass through your entire flock today, removing from there every speckled
and spotted sheep and every black one among the lambs and the spotted and speckled
among the goats; and such shall be my wages.
33 “So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come concerning
my wages. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black
among the lambs, if found with me, will be considered stolen.”
34 Laban said, “Good, let it be according to your word.”
35 So he removed on that day the striped and spotted male goats and all the speckled
and spotted female goats, every one with white in it, and all the black ones
among the sheep, and gave them into the care of his sons.
36 And he put a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob,
and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks.
37 Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled
white stripes in them, exposing the white which was in the rods.
38 He set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the gutters,
even in the watering troughs, where the flocks came to drink; and they mated
when they came to drink.
39 So the flocks mated by the rods, and the flocks brought forth striped, speckled,
and spotted.
40 Jacob separated the lambs, and made the flocks face toward the striped and
all the black in the flock of Laban; and he put his own herds apart, and did
not put them with Laban’s flock.
41 Moreover, whenever the stronger of the flock were mating, Jacob would
place the rods in the sight of the flock in the gutters, so that they might mate
by the rods;
42 but when the flock was feeble, he did not put them in; so the feebler were
Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s.
43 So the man became exceedingly prosperous, and had large flocks and female
and male servants and camels and donkeys.
Chapter 31
Jacob Leaves Secretly for Canaan
1 Now Jacob heard the words of Laban’s sons, saying, “Jacob has
taken away all that was our father’s, and from what belonged to our father
he has made all this wealth.”
2 Jacob saw the attitude of Laban, and behold, it was not friendly toward
him as formerly.
3 Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and
to your relatives, and I will be with you.”
4 So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to his flock in the field,
5 and said to them, “I see your father’s attitude, that it is
not friendly toward me as formerly, but the God of my father has been with
me.
6 “You know that I have served your father with all my strength.
7 “Yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times; however,
God did not allow him to hurt me.
8 “If he spoke thus, ‘The speckled shall be your wages,’ then
all the flock brought forth speckled; and if he spoke thus, ‘The striped
shall be your wages,’ then all the flock brought forth striped.
9 “Thus God has taken away your father’s livestock and given them
to me.
10 “And it came about at the time when the flock were mating that I lifted
up my eyes and saw in a dream, and behold, the male goats which were mating
were striped, speckled, and mottled.
11 “Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and
I said, ‘Here I am.’
12 “He said, ‘Lift up now your eyes and see that all the male goats
which are mating are striped, speckled, and mottled; for I have seen all
that Laban has been doing to you.
13 ‘I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar, where you
made a vow to Me; now arise, leave this land, and return to the land of your
birth.’ ”
14 Rachel and Leah said to him, “Do we still have any portion or inheritance
in our father’s house?
15 “Are we not reckoned by him as foreigners? For he has sold us, and
has also entirely consumed our purchase price.
16 “Surely all the wealth which God has taken away from our father belongs
to us and our children; now then, do whatever God has said to you.”
17 Then Jacob arose and put his children and his wives upon camels;
18 and he drove away all his livestock and all his property which he had gathered,
his acquired livestock which he had gathered in Paddan-aram, to go to the
land of Canaan to his father Isaac.
19 When Laban had gone to shear his flock, then Rachel stole the household
idols that were her father’s.
20 And Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was fleeing.
21 So he fled with all that he had; and he arose and crossed the Euphrates
River, and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.
Laban Pursues Jacob
22 When it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob had fled,
23 then he took his kinsmen with him and pursued him a distance of seven
days’ journey,
and he overtook him in the hill country of Gilead.
24 God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream of the night and said to him, “Be
careful that you do not speak to Jacob either good or bad.”
25 Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country,
and Laban with his kinsmen camped in the hill country of Gilead.
26 Then Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done by deceiving me and
carrying away my daughters like captives of the sword?
27 “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 timbrel and with
lyre;
28 and did not allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters? Now you have done
foolishly.
29 “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.’
30 “Now you have indeed gone away because you longed greatly for your father’s
house; but why did you steal my gods?”
31 Then Jacob replied to Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I thought that
you would take your daughters from me by force.
32 “The one with whom you find your gods shall not live; in the presence
of our kinsmen point out what is yours among my belongings and take it
for yourself.” For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.
33 So Laban went into Jacob’s tent and into Leah’s tent and into
the tent of the two maids, but he did not find them. Then he went out of Leah’s
tent and entered Rachel’s tent.
34 Now Rachel had taken the household idols and put them in the camel’s
saddle, and she sat on them. And Laban felt through all the tent but did not
find them.
35 She said to her father, “Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise
before you, for the manner of women is upon me.” So he searched but did
not find the household idols.
36 Then Jacob became angry and contended with Laban; and Jacob said to Laban, “What
is my transgression? What is my sin that you have hotly pursued me?
37 “Though you have felt through all my goods, what have you found of all
your household goods? Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen, that
they may decide between us two.
38 “These twenty years I have been with you; your ewes and your female
goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten the rams of your flocks.
39 “That which was torn of beasts I did not bring to you; I bore the loss
of it myself. You required it of my hand whether stolen by day or stolen by night.
40 “Thus I was: by day the heat consumed me and the frost by night, and
my sleep fled from my eyes.
41 “These 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 changed
my wages ten times.
42 “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 toil of my hands, so He rendered judgment last
night.”
The Covenant of Mizpah
43 Then Laban replied to Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, and the
children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see
is mine. But what can I do this day to these my daughters or to their children
whom they have borne?
44 “So now come, let us make a covenant, you and I, and let it be
a witness between you and me.”
45 Then Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar.
46 Jacob said to his kinsmen, “Gather stones.” So they took stones
and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap.
47 Now Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed.
48 Laban said, “This heap is a witness between you and me this day.” Therefore
it was named Galeed,
49 and Mizpah, for he said, “May the Lord watch between you and me
when we are absent one from the other.
50 “If you mistreat my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters,
although no man is with us, see, God is witness between you and me.”
51 Laban said to Jacob, “Behold this heap and behold the pillar which I
have set between you and me.
52 “This heap is a witness, and the pillar 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
pillar to me, for harm.
53 “The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father,
judge between us.” So Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac.
54 Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain, and called his kinsmen
to the meal; and they ate the meal and spent the night on the mountain.
55 Early in the morning Laban arose, and kissed his sons and his daughters
and blessed them. Then Laban departed and returned to his place.
Chapter 32
Jacob’s Fear of Esau
1 Now as Jacob went on his way, the angels of God met him.
2 Jacob said when he saw them, “This is God’s camp.” So he
named that place Mahanaim.
3 Then Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of
Seir, the country of Edom.
4 He also commanded them saying, “Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: ‘Thus
says your servant Jacob, “I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until
now;
5 I have oxen and donkeys and flocks and male and female servants; and I
have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favor in your sight.” ’ ”
6 The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau,
and furthermore he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.”
7 Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people
who were with him, and the flocks and the herds and the camels, into two companies;
8 for he said, “If Esau comes to the one company and attacks it, then
the company which is left will escape.”
9 Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac,
O Lord, who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your relatives,
and I will prosper you,’
10 I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness and of all the faithfulness
which You have shown to Your servant; for with my staff only I crossed this
Jordan, and now I have become two companies.
11 “Deliver me, I pray, 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.
12 “For You said, ‘I will surely prosper you and make your
descendants as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered.’ ”
13 So he spent the night there. Then he selected from what he had with
him a present for his brother Esau:
14 two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty
rams,
15 thirty milking camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty
female donkeys and ten male donkeys.
16 He delivered them into the hand of his servants, every drove by itself,
and said to his servants, “Pass on before me, and put a space between droves.”
17 He commanded the one in front, saying, “When my brother Esau meets
you and asks you, saying, ‘To whom do you belong, and where are you going,
and to whom do these animals in front of you belong?’
18 then you shall say, ‘These belong to your servant Jacob; it is a present
sent to my lord Esau. And behold, he also is behind us.’ ”
19 Then he commanded also the second and the third, and all those who followed
the droves, saying, “After this manner you shall speak to Esau when you
find him;
20 and you shall say, ‘Behold, your servant Jacob also is behind us.’ ” For
he said, “I will appease him with the present that goes before me. Then
afterward I will see his face; perhaps he will accept me.”
21 So the present passed on before him, while he himself spent that night in
the camp.
22 Now he arose that same night and took his two wives and his two maids and
his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.
23 He took them and sent them across the stream. And he sent across whatever
he had.
Jacob Wrestles
24 Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
25 When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket
of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled
with him.
26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” But he said, “I
will not let you go unless you bless me.”
27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”
28 He said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you
have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.”
29 Then Jacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name.” But
he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And he blessed him there.
30 So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face
to face, yet my life has been preserved.”
31 Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping
on his thigh.
32 Therefore, to this day the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip
which is on the socket of the thigh, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s
thigh in the sinew of the hip.
"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)