27 Why did you flee secretly and steal away from me and not tell me, when I might have sent you away with joy and with songs, with tambourine and with lyre?
28 And you did not allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters. Now you have acted foolishly.
29 It is in my power to do you harm, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, Be careful that you do not speak to Jacob either good or bad.
30 And now, though you had to go because you longed greatly for your father’s house, why did you steal my gods?
31 And Jacob answered and said to Laban, Because I was afraid, for I thought that you might take your daughters from me by force.
32 The one with whom you find your gods shall not live. In the presence of our brothers indicate what there is with me that is yours, and take it. Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.
33 And Laban went into Jacob’s tent and into Leah’s tent and into the two female servants’ tent, but he did not find them. Then he went from Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s tent.
34 Now Rachel had taken the household idols and put them in the camel’s saddle, and she sat upon them. And Laban rummaged through all the tent but did not find them.
35 And she said to her father, Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise up before you, for the manner of women is upon me. So he searched but did not find the household idols.
36 And Jacob became angry and contended with Laban; and Jacob answered and said to Laban, What is my transgression? What is my sin, that you have so hotly pursued me?
37 Although you have rummaged through all my possessions, what have you found of all your household goods? Set it here before my brothers and your brothers, that they may decide between the two of us.
38 These twenty years have I been with you; your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, and I have not eaten the rams of your flocks.
39 That which was torn by beasts I did not bring to you; I bore the loss of it myself. Of my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night.
40 Thus I was: By day the dry heat consumed me, and the frost by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes.
41 These twenty years have I been in your house; I served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times.
42 If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the Dread of Isaac, had not been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night.
43 And Laban answered and said to Jacob, The daughters are my daughters, and the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day to these my daughters or to their children whom they have borne?