Genesis 30:37-43

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

³⁷ Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the rods.^{(A) 38} He set the rods that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, ³⁹ the flocks bred in front of the rods, and so the flocks produced young that were striped, speckled, and spotted. ⁴⁰ Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and the completely black animals in the flock of Laban, and he put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban’s flock. ⁴¹ Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob laid the rods in the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the rods, ⁴² but for the feebler of the flock he did not lay them there, so the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s. ⁴³ Thus the man grew exceedingly rich and had large flocks and male and female slaves and camels and donkeys.^(B)