34. “Good,” said Laban. “Let it be as you have said.”
35. That day Laban removed the streaked and spotted male goats and all the speckled and spotted female goats — every one that had any white on it — and every dark-colored one among the lambs, and he placed his sons in charge of them.
36. He put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob. Jacob, meanwhile, was shepherding the rest of Laban’s flock.
37. Jacob then took branches of fresh poplar, almond, and plane wood, and peeled the bark, exposing white stripes on the branches.
38. He set the peeled branches in the troughs in front of the sheep — in the water channels where the sheep came to drink. And the sheep bred when they came to drink.
39. The flocks bred in front of the branches and bore streaked, speckled, and spotted young.
40. Jacob separated the lambs and made the flocks face the streaked and the completely dark sheep in Laban’s flocks. Then he set his own stock apart and didn’t put them with Laban’s sheep.
41. Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob placed the branches in the troughs, in full view of the flocks, and they would breed in front of the branches.
42. As for the weaklings of the flocks, he did not put out the branches. So it turned out that the weak sheep belonged to Laban and the stronger ones to Jacob.
43. And the man became very rich. He had many flocks, male and female slaves, and camels and donkeys.