English Standard Version

Genesis 30:33-40 English Standard Version (ESV)

33. So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen.”

34. Laban said, “Good! Let it be as you have said.”

35. But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in the charge of his sons.

36. And he set a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban’s flock.

37. Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks.

38. He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink,

39. the flocks bred in front of the sticks and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted.

40. And Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban. He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban’s flock.