33 So Laban went into Jacob’s tent and into Leah’s tent and into the tent of the two maids, but he did not find them. Then he went out of 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 on them. And Laban felt through all the tent but did not findthem. 35 She said to her father, “Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the manner of women is upon me.” So he searched but did not find the household idols.
36 Then Jacob became angry and contended with Laban; and Jacob said to Laban, “What is my transgression? What is my sin that you have hotly pursued me? 37 “Though you have felt through all my goods, what have you found of all your household goods? Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen, that they may decide between us two. 38 “These twenty years I have been with you; your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten the rams of your flocks. 39 “That which was torn of beasts I did not bring to you; I bore the loss of it myself. You required it of my hand whether stolen by day or stolen by night. 40 “Thus I was: by day the heat consumed me and the frost by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. 41 “These twenty years I have been in your house; I served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flock, and you changed my wages ten times. 42 “If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had not been for me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and the toil of my hands, so He rendered judgment last night.”
Here we see a bit more of the conflict that existed between Jacob and Laban, and why Jacob was in so much haste to leave as he did. He worked for twenty years, and after all that time, Laban still treated Jacob as a stranger. He constantly changed Jacob’s wages, and never trusted him in the case of losses, or theft. Any of those, Jacob had to bear from his own flocks. In all of that, Jacob did prosper, but not because of Laban, but because the Lord was with him. We see the results of his trust in God, and we’ll see the end result of this confrontation in the next day or so.