Laban Chases After Jacob and His Family

31:22-42

22 Three days later someone informed Laban that Jacob had run away. 23 So Laban took some of his relatives with him and chased after Jacob and his family for seven days until they overtook him in the hill country of Gilead. 24 But that night God appeared to Laban in a dream and warned him, “Be sure that you do not threaten Jacob in any way.”

25 By the time that Laban caught up with Jacob, Jacob had already set up his tents in the hill country of Gilead, so Laban and his relatives also set up camp there at a place nearby. 26 Then the next day Laban met with Jacob and complained to him, “Look what you have done! You have deceived me and dragged away my daughters like prisoners of war! 27 You should not have deceived me and secretly run away! You should have told me you were leaving! If I had known, we could have held a feast and sung joyful songs and danced together, with tambourines and lyres playing, before sending you on your way. 28 You did not even let me kiss my daughters and my grandchildren before they left! What you have done is foolish! 29 I have the power to harm all of you, but last night in a dream the God whom your father serves warned me not to threaten you in any way. 30 Now then, I understand that you left because you were so homesick to return to your father’s family, but why did you steal my gods?”

31 Jacob answered Laban, “We left secretly because I was afraid. I thought that if I told you we were leaving, you might take your two daughters from me by force. 32 However we did not take your gods. In fact, if you find your gods with anyone here, that person will die for stealing them! So while our relatives are watching, go ahead and search all my belongings for yourself. If you find anything that is yours, take it.” When Jacob said that, he did not know that Rachel was the one who had stolen the idols.

33 So Laban started searching in Jacob’s tent. Then he searched through Leah’s tent and through the two servant women’s tent, but he did not find anything that belonged to him. Next after he left those tents, he went into Rachel’s tent. 34 Now Rachel had hidden the idols inside her camel saddlebag, and she was sitting on them. So although Laban searched through everything else in the tent, he could not find them. 35 As he was searching, Rachel said to him, “Sir, please do not be upset that I am not able to get up to greet you, because it’s that time of the month when I feel weak.” That is also why he could not find his idols when he searched her tent.

36 Then Jacob became very angry at Laban and confronted him by saying to him, “Tell me my crime! Tell me what sin I have done against you that gives you the right to chase after me! 37 Now that you have searched through all my things, did you find anything that anyone took from your household? If so, put it here in front of our relatives, so that they can decide which one of us is right!

38 “For twenty years I have worked for you! During all that time your sheep and your goats had no trouble bearing young, and I have never killed and eaten any animals from your flocks. 39 Whenever wild animals killed any of your animals, I never brought the dead animal to you to prove I was innocent. Rather, I replaced them at my own expense. Besides that, you required me to pay for any animals that anyone ever stole at any time of day or night. 40 That was my situation! During the days, I suffered from the hot sun, and during the nights it was so cold that I could not sleep. 41 It was like that for me during the entire twenty years that I was with you. I worked for you for fourteen years in order to marry your two daughters, and I worked another six years to earn flocks of animals from you, even though you changed my pay ten times. 42 If God, whom my ancestors Abraham and Isaac serve and revere, had not been with me to take care of me, there is no doubt that I would now be leaving here with absolutely nothing. But God knows how much you have mistreated me and how hard I have worked for you, so last night he rebuked you.”