26. “What have you done?” Laban demanded of Jacob. “You’ve deceived me and carried away my daughters as if they were captives of war!
27. 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?
28. You didn’t even allow me to kiss my daughters and my grandchildren good-bye. You have acted foolishly!
29. I have the power to do you harm, but the God of your father told me last night, ‘Be careful that you neither bless nor curse Jacob.’
30. Now I understand that you have gone away because you longed desperately for your father’s house. Yet why did you steal my gods?”
31. “I left secretly because I was afraid!” Jacob replied to Laban. “I thought you might take your daughters away from me by force.
32. Whoever has taken your gods will be put to death! In the presence of our relatives identify whatever is yours and take it.” (Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.)
33. So Laban entered Jacob’s tent, and Leah’s tent, and the tent of the two female servants, but he did not find the idols. Then he left Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s.
34. (Now Rachel had taken the idols and put them inside her camel’s saddle and sat on them.) Laban searched the whole tent, but did not find them.
35. Rachel said to her father, “Don’t be angry, my lord. I cannot stand up in your presence because I am having my period.” So he searched thoroughly, but did not find the idols.
36. Jacob became angry and argued with Laban. “What did I do wrong?” he demanded of Laban. “What sin of mine prompted you to chase after me in hot pursuit?
37. When you searched through all my goods, did you find anything that belonged to you? Set it here before my relatives and yours, and let them settle the dispute between the two of us!
38. “I have been with you for the past twenty years. Your ewes and female goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks.