12. The angel said, ‘Look! Only the streaked, speckled, or spotted male goats are mating. I have seen all the wrong things Laban has been doing to you.
13. I am the God who appeared to you at Bethel, where you poured olive oil on the stone you set up on end and where you made a promise to me. Now I want you to leave here and go back to the land where you were born.’ ”
14. Rachel and Leah answered Jacob, “Our father has nothing to give us when he dies.
15. He has treated us like strangers. He sold us to you, and then he spent all of the money you paid for us.
16. God took all this wealth from our father, and now it belongs to us and our children. So do whatever God has told you to do.”
17. So Jacob put his children and his wives on camels,
18. and they began their journey back to Isaac, his father, in the land of Canaan. All the flocks of animals that Jacob owned walked ahead of them. He carried everything with him that he had gotten while he lived in Northwest Mesopotamia.
19. While Laban was gone to cut the wool from his sheep, Rachel stole the idols that belonged to him.
20. And Jacob tricked Laban the Aramean by not telling him he was leaving.
21. Jacob and his family left quickly, crossed the Euphrates River, and traveled toward the mountains of Gilead.
22. Three days later Laban learned that Jacob had run away,
23. so he gathered his relatives and began to chase him. After seven days Laban found him in the mountains of Gilead.
24. That night God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream and said, “Be careful! Do not say anything to Jacob, good or bad.”