Rachel

When you leave me today, you will find two men at Rachel’s tomb in Zelzah on the border of Benjamin. They will say to you, ‘The donkeys you seek have been found, and now your father has stopped worrying about the donkeys and started worrying about you, asking, “What should I do about my son?”’

“Is he well?” Jacob inquired. “Yes,” they answered, “and here comes his daughter Rachel with his sheep.”

⁹ While he was still speaking with them, Rachel arrived with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess.

¹⁰ As soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his mother’s brother Laban, with Laban’s sheep, he went up and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle’s sheep.

¹¹ Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud.

¹² He told Rachel that he was Rebekah’s son, a relative of her father, and she ran and told her father.

¹⁶ Now Laban had two daughters; the older was named Leah, and the younger was named Rachel.

¹⁷ Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel was shapely and beautiful.

¹⁸ Since Jacob loved Rachel, he answered, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”

¹⁹ Laban replied, “Better that I give her to you than to another. Stay here with me.”

²⁰ So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, yet it seemed but a few days because of his love for her.

When morning came, there was Leah! “What have you done to me?” Jacob said to Laban. “Wasn’t it for Rachel that I served you? Why have you deceived me?”

²⁸ And Jacob did just that. He finished the week’s celebration, and Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife.

²⁹ Laban also gave his servant girl Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maidservant.

³⁰ Jacob slept with Rachel as well, and indeed, he loved Rachel more than Leah. So he worked for Laban another seven years.

³¹ When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren.

¹ When Rachel saw that she was not bearing any children for Jacob, she envied her sister. “Give me children, or I will die!” she said to Jacob.

² Jacob became angry with Rachel and said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld children from you?”

⁶ Then Rachel said, “God has vindicated me; He has heard my plea and given me a son.” So she named him Dan.

⁷ And Rachel’s servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.

⁸ Then Rachel said, “In my great struggles, I have wrestled with my sister and won.” So she named him Naphtali.

¹⁴ Now during the wheat harvest, Reuben went out and found some mandrakes in the field. When he brought them to his mother, Rachel begged Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.”

¹⁵ But Leah replied, “Is it not enough that you have taken away my husband? Now you want to take my son’s mandrakes as well?” “Very well,” said Rachel, “he may sleep with you tonight in exchange for your son’s mandrakes.”

²² Then God remembered Rachel. He listened to her and opened her womb,

²³ and she conceived and gave birth to a son. “God has taken away my shame,” she said.