Genesis 31:3-16 (Vespers, 1st reading)
- 3
- Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you.”
- 4
- So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field, to his flock,
- 5
- and said to them, “I see your father’s countenance, that it is not favorable toward me as before; but the God of my father has been with me.
- 6
- “And you know that with all my might I have served your father.
- 7
- “Yet your father has deceived me and changed my wages ten times, but God did not allow him to hurt me.
- 8
- “If he said thus: ‘The speckled shall be your wages,’ then all the flocks bore speckled. And if he said thus: ‘The streaked shall be your wages,’ then all the flocks bore streaked.
- 9
- “So God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me.
- 10
- “And it happened, at the time when the flocks conceived, that I lifted my eyes and saw in a dream, and behold, the rams which leaped upon the flocks were streaked, speckled, and gray-spotted.
- 11
- “Then the Angel of God spoke to me in a dream, saying, ‘Jacob.’ And I said, ‘Here I am.’
- 12
- “And He said, ‘Lift your eyes now and see, all the rams which leap on the flocks are streaked, speckled, and gray-spotted; for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you.
- 13
- ‘I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar and where you made a vow to Me. Now arise, get out of this land, and return to the land of your family.’”
- 14
- Then Rachel and Leah answered and said to him, “Is there still any portion or inheritance for us in our father’s house?
- 15
- “Are we not considered strangers by him? For he has sold us, and also completely consumed our money.
- 16
- “For all these riches which God has taken from our father are really ours and our children’s; now then, whatever God has said to you, do it.”