Genesis
37
- Jacob lived in the land where his father
had stayed, the land of Canaan.
- This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, a
young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons
of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their
father a bad report about them.
- Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of
his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made
a richly ornamented robe for him.
- When his brothers saw that their father
loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind
word to him.
- Joseph had a dream, and when he told it
to his brothers, they hated him all the more.
- He said to them, "Listen to this dream
I had:
- We were binding sheaves of grain out in
the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves
gathered around mine and bowed down to it."
- His brothers said to him, "Do you intend
to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?" And they hated him all
the more because of his dream and what he had said.
- Then he had another dream, and he told it
to his brothers. "Listen," he said, "I had another dream, and
this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me."
- When he told his father as well as his brothers,
his father rebuked him and said, "What is this dream you had? Will your
mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before
you?"
- His brothers were jealous of him, but his
father kept the matter in mind.
- Now his brothers had gone to graze their
father's flocks near Shechem,
- and Israel said to Joseph, "As you
know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going
to send you to them." "Very well," he replied.
- So he said to him, "Go and see if all
is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me."
Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron. When Joseph arrived at Shechem,
- a man found him wandering around in the
fields and asked him, "What are you looking for ?"
- He replied, "I'm looking for my brothers.
Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks ?"
- "They have moved on from here,"
the man answered. "I heard them say, 'Let's go to Dothan.'" So Joseph
went after his brothers and found them near Dothan.
- But they saw him in the distance, and before
he reached them, they plotted to kill him.
- "Here comes that dreamer!" they
said to each other.
- "Come now, let's kill him and throw
him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him.
Then we'll see what comes of his dreams."
- When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue
him from their hands. "Let's not take his life," he said.
- "Don't shed any blood. Throw him into
this cistern here in the desert, but don't lay a hand on him." Reuben
said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.
- So when Joseph came to his brothers, they
stripped him of his robe -- the richly ornamented robe he was wearing --
- and they took him and threw him into the
cistern. Now the cistern was empty; there was no water in it.
- As they sat down to eat their meal, they
looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels
were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take
them down to Egypt.
- Judah said to his brothers, "What will
we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood ?
- Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites
and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh
and blood." His brothers agreed.
- So when the Midianite merchants came by,
his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels
of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.
- When Reuben returned to the cistern and
saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes.
- He went back to his brothers and said, "The
boy isn't there! Where can I turn now ?"
- Then they got Joseph's robe, slaughtered
a goat and dipped the robe in the blood.
- They took the ornamented robe back to their
father and said, "We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your
son's robe."
- He recognized it and said, "It is my
son's robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been
torn to pieces."
- Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth
and mourned for his son many days.
- All his sons and daughters came to comfort
him, but he refused to be comforted. "No," he said, "in mourning
will I go down to the grave to my son." So his father wept for him.
- Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in
Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard.
Back |
Home |
Next