God tells Jacob to return to Canaan. Jacob gathers his family and flees while Laban is shearing sheep. Rachel steals her father's household gods. Laban pursues, catches them after seven days. Accusations fly. Jacob defends himself: "These twenty years I have been in your house... you have changed my wages ten times." They make a covenant—not of friendship, but of separation. "The Lord watch between you and me, when we are out of one another's sight." Often quoted at farewells, this phrase is actually a warning: may God keep us from harming each other. Jacob crosses the boundary. Home is ahead.

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