“Before I finished praying in my heart, along came Rebekah with her water jug on her shoulder! She went down to the spring and drew water. So I said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’

All this will come to pass because Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

That day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. “We’ve found water,” they reported.

Now Rebekah had been listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau went out to the open fields to hunt down some wild game and bring it back,

Now then, my son, do exactly what I tell you!

So his mother told him, “Any curse against you will fall on me, my son! Just obey me! Go and get them for me!”

When Rebekah heard what her older son Esau had said, she quickly summoned her younger son Jacob and told him, “Look, your brother Esau is planning to get revenge by killing you.

Stay there until your brother’s anger against you subsides and he forgets what you did to him. Then I’ll send someone to bring you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?”

Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am deeply depressed because of these daughters of Heth. If Jacob were to marry one of these daughters of Heth who live in this land, I would want to die!”

Then this stone that I have set up as a sacred stone will be the house of God, and I will surely give you back a tenth of everything you give me.”

Since Jacob had fallen in love with Rachel, he said, “I’ll serve you seven years in exchange for your younger daughter Rachel.”

Jacob did as Laban said. When Jacob completed Leah’s bridal week, Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife.

So Laban asked, “What should I give you?” “You don’t need to give me a thing,” Jacob replied, “but if you agree to this one condition, I will continue to care for your flocks and protect them:

“Agreed!” said Laban, “It will be as you say.”

Jacob heard that Laban’s sons were complaining, “Jacob has taken everything that belonged to our father! He has gotten rich at our father’s expense!”

So Jacob sent a message for Rachel and Leah to come to the field where his flocks were.

But God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream at night and warned him, “Be careful that you neither bless nor curse Jacob.”

Why did you run away secretly and deceive me? Why didn’t you tell me so I could send you off with a celebration complete with singing, tambourines, and harps?

I was consumed by scorching heat during the day and by piercing cold at night, and I went without sleep.

May the God of Abraham and the god of Nahor, the gods of their father, judge between us.” Jacob took an oath by the God whom his father Isaac feared.