26. “What do you mean by deceiving me like this?” Laban demanded. “How dare you drag my daughters away like prisoners of war?
27. Why did you slip away secretly? Why did you deceive me? And why didn’t you say you wanted to leave? I would have given you a farewell feast, with singing and music, accompanied by tambourines and harps.
28. Why didn’t you let me kiss my daughters and grandchildren and tell them good-bye? You have acted very foolishly!
29. I could destroy you, but the God of your father appeared to me last night and warned me, ‘Leave Jacob alone!’
30. I can understand your feeling that you must go, and your intense longing for your father’s home. But why have you stolen my gods?”
31. “I rushed away because I was afraid,” Jacob answered. “I thought you would take your daughters from me by force.
32. But as for your gods, see if you can find them, and let the person who has taken them die! And if you find anything else that belongs to you, identify it before all these relatives of ours, and I will give it back!” But Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the household idols.
33. Laban went first into Jacob’s tent to search there, then into Leah’s, and then the tents of the two servant wives—but he found nothing. Finally, he went into Rachel’s tent.
34. But Rachel had taken the household idols and hidden them in her camel saddle, and now she was sitting on them. When Laban had thoroughly searched her tent without finding them,
35. she said to her father, “Please, sir, forgive me if I don’t get up for you. I’m having my monthly period.” So Laban continued his search, but he could not find the household idols.
36. Then Jacob became very angry, and he challenged Laban. “What’s my crime?” he demanded. “What have I done wrong to make you chase after me as though I were a criminal?