32. Let me go through all your flocks today and take every black lamb and every spotted or speckled young goat. That is all the wages I want.
33. In the future you can easily find out if I have been honest. When you come to check up on my wages, if I have any goat that isn't speckled or spotted or any sheep that isn't black, you will know that it has been stolen.”
34. Laban answered, “Agreed. We will do as you suggest.”
35. But that day Laban removed the male goats that had stripes or spots and all the females that were speckled and spotted or which had white on them; he also removed all the black sheep. He put his sons in charge of them,
36. and then went away from Jacob with this flock as far as he could travel in three days. Jacob took care of the rest of Laban's flocks.
37. Jacob got green branches of poplar, almond, and plane trees and stripped off some of the bark so that the branches had white stripes on them.
38. He placed these branches in front of the flocks at their drinking troughs. He put them there, because the animals mated when they came to drink.
39. So when the goats bred in front of the branches, they produced young that were streaked, speckled, and spotted.
40. Jacob kept the sheep separate from the goats and made them face in the direction of the streaked and black animals of Laban's flock. In this way he built up his own flock and kept it apart from Laban's.
41. When the healthy animals were mating, Jacob put the branches in front of them at the drinking troughs, so that they would breed among the branches.