The birth of the nation of Israel
Genesis
1 The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had acquired, and the people they had gained in Haran. They set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. 6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the sacred place at Shechem, to the great tree of Moreh. At that time, the Canaanites were in the land. 7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. 9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.
10 Now there was a famine in the land, so Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. 11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know that you are a beautiful woman. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.” 14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. 15 And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. 16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels. 17 But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram and said, “What have you done to me? Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” 20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.
1 So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. 2 Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. 3 From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier 4 and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord. 5 Lot, who was traveling with Abram, also had flocks, herds, and tents. 6 But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they could not remain together.
7And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdsmen of Lot’s cattle. And the Canaanites and the Perizzites dwelt in the land at that time. 8And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen; for we be brethren. 9Is not the whole land before thee? Now therefore, I pray thee, separate thyself from me. If thou wilt go to the left, then I will go to the right: but if thou wilt take the right, then I will go to the left.
10Lot looked around and saw that the whole region of the Jordan was well-watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar. This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. 11So Lot chose for himself all the region of the Jordan and set out east. So they separated one from the other. 12Abram lived in the land of Canaan, and Lot lived in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent as far as Sodom. 13The Sodomites were wicked and sinning greatly against the Lord.
14After Lot had separated from him, the Lord said to Abram, “Look up from where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward. 15All the land that you see I will give to you and to your descendants forever. 16I will make your descendants as numerous as the dust of the earth. If anyone can count the dust of the earth, then your descendants can be counted. 17Arise, walk through the land in its length and in its breadth, for I am giving it to you.” 18So Abram moved his tent and moved to live by the oaks of Mamre in Hebron. There he built an altar to the Lord.
1At that time Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim went up to war 2against Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar). 3All these joined forces in the Valley of Siddim, which is the Salt Sea. 4Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled against him. 5In the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer and the kings allied with him went out and defeated the Rephaim in Ashtaroth Karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim, 6and the Horites in their hill country of Seir, as far as El Paran, which is on the edge of the wilderness. 7Then they turned back and came to En-mishpat (that is, Kadesh), and they struck down all the Amalekites and the Amorites in Hazazon-tamar. 8Then the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) went out and lined up to fight them in the Valley of Siddim, 9with Chedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goiim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar—four kings against five. 10Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits, and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell into them. The rest fled to the mountain. 11They took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food and went away. 12They also took Abram’s nephew Lot and his possessions, for he was living in Sodom, and they were gone. 13One of those who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the oaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and brother of Aner. These were the men who had made a covenant with Abram. 14When Abram heard that his nephew had been taken captive, he called out his three hundred and eighteen trained men, born in his own house, and pursued the raiders as far as Dan. 15He sent his servants against them by night and defeated them and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus. 16He brought back all the possessions, and he also brought back his nephew Lot and his possessions, as well as the women and the people. 17When he returned from defeating Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh, that is, the King’s Valley. 18Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine, for he was priest of the Most High God. 19He blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by the Most High God, Creator of heaven and earth. 20Praise be to the Most High God, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” So Abram gave him a tenth of everything. 21The king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people, but keep the goods for yourself.” 22But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have raised my hand to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, 23that I will not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ 24I will take nothing but what the servants have eaten and the share of the men of Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, who went with me. Let them take their share.”
1After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Abram; I am your shield and your exceeding great reward.” 2Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what will you give me? I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus.” 3Abram said, “You have not given me offspring, and should my servant, born in my house, be my heir?” 4But the Lord said to him, “He will not be your heir; your own offspring will be your heir.” 5He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to number them.” And he said, “So many will be your descendants.” 6Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. 7Then he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” 8He said, “Sovereign Lord, how will I know that I will possess it?” 9He said to him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10When he had brought them all, he cut them in half and laid each half opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in half. 11The birds of prey came down on the carcasses, and Abram drove them away. 12When the sun went down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a deep darkness fell on him. 13The Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land not their own, and they will enslave them and mistreat them for four hundred years. 14I will also judge the nation they will serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15As for you, you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” 17When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking furnace and a flaming torch appeared, passing between the two halves. 18On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates, 19the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”
1Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had no children. But she had a maidservant, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. 2Then Sarai said to Abram, “The Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my maidservant; perhaps I may have children by her.” Abram listened to Sarai’s advice. 3After Abram had lived in Canaan for ten years, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar, her Egyptian maidservant, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife. 4He went in to Hagar, and she conceived. When she saw that she had conceived, she despised her mistress. 5Sarai said to Abram, “I have borne you a grudge. I gave you my maidservant, and now that she has conceived, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.” 6Then Abram said to Sarai, “Look, your maid is in your power; do with her as you see fit.” When Sarai mistreated her, Hagar ran away from her. 7But the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the road to Shur. 8He said to her, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from? Where are you going?” She replied, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” 9The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” 10The angel of the Lord said to her, “I will multiply your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.” 11The angel of the Lord said to her, “Look, you are pregnant and will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction. 12He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand will be against him; he will be against all his brothers.” 13So Hagar called the name of the Lord who spoke to her El-Roi, for she said, “Have I not seen the One who sees me?” 14Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi, which is between Kadesh and Bered. 15Hagar bore Abram a son. Abram named his son whom Hagar bore Ishmael. 16Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.
1When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am El Shaddai. Walk before me and be blameless. 2I will make my covenant between me and you, and I will greatly multiply you.” 3And Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, 4“This is my covenant with you: You will be the father of a multitude of nations. 5No longer will your name be Abram, but your name will be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations as an everlasting covenant, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, the whole land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.” 9Then God said to Abraham, “You shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. 10This is my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you, which you shall keep: Every male among you must be circumcised. 11You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, as a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12In your generations to come, on the eighth day after your birth, every male child must be circumcised, whether he is born in your house or bought with money from a foreigner who is not your offspring. 13Every male child born in your house or bought with money must be circumcised. This is my covenant in your flesh as a sign of an everlasting covenant. 14Any uncircumcised male whose foreskin is not circumcised shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant.” 15Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16I will bless her and give you a son by her. I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” 17Abraham fell on his face and laughed, saying to himself, “Shall a son be born to a man who is a hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” 18Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!” 19But God said, “Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him, an everlasting covenant with him and with his descendants after him. 20As for Ishmael, I have heard you. I will bless him and make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly. He will be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. 21But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this set time next year.” 22When God had finished speaking with Abraham, he went from him. 23Abraham took his son Ishmael, and all those born in his household and all those bought with money, every male in his household, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskins on the very day God spoke to him. 24Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he circumcised the flesh of his foreskin. 25His son Ishmael was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 26On that very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised, 27and with him all the males in his household, those born in his household and those bought with money from a foreigner.
1Now Abraham was sitting at the entrance of his tent by the oaks of Mamre, and the Lord appeared to him in the heat of the day. 2He looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed down to the ground. 3He said, “My lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. 4Let a little water be brought, and you can wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree. 5I will bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves and go on your way, for that is why you have come to your servant.” They said, “Do as you say.” 6Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quickly knead three measures of fine flour and bake cakes on the ground.” 7Then Abraham himself ran to the herd, selected a tender and good calf, and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare it. 8He took butter and milk and the calf he had prepared and set it before them. While they were eating, he stood by them under the tree. 9They asked him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” He answered, “Here, in the tent.” 10The Lord said, “About this time next year I will return to you, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” Sarah was listening at the tent door. 11Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age, and Sarah was well past the age of weaning. 12So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, will I have pleasure? My lord is also old.” 13The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I really bear a child, now that I am old?’ 14Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.” 15But Sarah denied it and said, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. The Lord said to her, “You did laugh.” 16So the men turned from there and headed toward Sodom. Abraham went to see them off. 17The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him. 19For I have chosen him so that he will command his children and his descendants after him to keep the way of the Lord, to do what is right and just, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham all that he has promised him.” 20The Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sin is very grievous. 21I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me, or not. I will know.” 22The men turned and went toward Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before the Lord. 23He approached and said, “Will you really destroy the righteous with the wicked? 24Perhaps there are fifty righteous people in the city, will you destroy it and not spare the place for the fifty righteous people who are in it? 25Will you not do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked? Then the righteous will be as the wicked. Will you not do such a thing? Will not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?” 26The Lord said to him, “If I find fifty righteous people in Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” 27Abraham replied, “I have taken upon myself to speak to the Lord, though I am but dust and ashes. 28What if five of the fifty are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for the sake of five?” “I will not destroy it,” he said, “if I find forty-five there.” 29But he continued and said, “Perhaps forty will be found there.” He replied, “I will not do it for the sake of forty.” 30Abraham said, “Oh, let not the Lord be angry that I speak. What if thirty are found there?” And he said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.” 31Abraham said, “I have taken upon myself to speak to the Lord. What if only twenty are found there?” He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of the twenty.” 32“Please don’t let the Lord be angry,” he continued, “and I will speak just once more. Perhaps ten will be found there.” He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.” 33When the Lord had finished speaking to Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned to his home.
1When the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, Lot was sitting at the gate of the city. When he saw them, he got up and went out to meet them. He bowed down to the ground. 2He said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night. Wash your feet. Then you can get up early in the morning and go on your way.” But they said, “No, we will spend the night in this field.” 3But he urged them so much that they went to him. When they came to his house, he prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. 4Before they had gone to bed, the men of the city, both young and old, surrounded the house. 5They called to Lot and said, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may have sex with them.” 6Lot went out to meet them, but shut the door behind him. 7He said, “Please, my brothers, don’t do such a shameful thing! 8Look, I have two daughters who have never known a man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. But do not do anything to these men, for they have come under my roof.” 9But they said to him, “Get out of here!” and they kept shouting, “You have come here as a foreigner, and you are trying to decide what to do. You will be worse off than they are!” They pressed hard on Lot and were about to break down the door. 10Then the two men pulled Lot into the house with their own hands and locked the door. 11They struck the people outside, from the youngest to the oldest, with blindness so that they could not find the door. 12Then the men said to Lot, “Do you still have anyone here? Bring out your sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and all who belong to you from the city! 13We are going to destroy this place, because the outcry against it has become so great before the Lord that the Lord has sent us to destroy it.” 14Then Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who wanted to marry his daughters, “Get up! Get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy this city!” But they thought he was joking. 15When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters, so that you will not be consumed in the iniquity of the city.” 16When he hesitated, the men grabbed his hand, his wife, and his two daughters, for the Lord was willing to spare them. They took him outside the city and left him there. 17And they brought them out, and said, Escape for thy life; look not, neither stay thou in all the plain: escape to the mountains, lest thou be consumed. 18And Lot said unto them, Not so, my Lord: 19For thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thy mercy is great, which thou hast shewed unto him in saving my life: but I cannot escape to the mountains; lest the evil take me, and I die. 20Behold, there is a city near by, to which I may flee: it is a little one, and I shall escape there: is it not a little one? and I shall live. 21And he said unto him, Very well; I will grant thee this also, and will not overthrow the city for which thou hast spoken. 22Hurry, hide thyself there; for I cannot do anything until thou come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. 23When Lot arrived in Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24Then the Lord rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of heaven. 25He overthrew those cities and all the surrounding country, along with all the people who lived in the cities and everything that grew on the ground. 26Lot’s wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. 27Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood with the Lord. 28He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the surrounding country, and he saw smoke rising from the land like the smoke from a furnace. 29When God destroyed the surrounding countries, he remembered Abraham and saved Lot from the destruction that had come upon the cities where Lot had lived. 30Then Lot and his two daughters went up from Zoar and settled in the mountains. He was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. 31The older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man left on earth to live with us after the custom of all the earth. 32Come, let us make our father drink wine and lie with him, that we may preserve offspring through him.” 33That night they made their father drink wine. Then the older daughter went in to him and lay with him. But he did not know when she lay down or when she went up. 34The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Look, I lay with my father last night. Let us make him drink wine tonight also. You lie down and sleep with him, that we may preserve offspring through him.” 35So they made their father drink wine that night also. The younger daughter lay down with him and slept with him. But he did not know when she lay down with him or when she went up. 36So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. 37The older one gave birth to a son and named him Moab, the father of the Moabites today. 38The younger one also gave birth to a son and named him Ben-Ammi, the father of the Ammonites today.
1From there Abraham traveled to the Negev. He stopped between Kadesh and Shur and stayed in Gerar. 2Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Abimelech king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her. 3But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “You will surely die, because you have taken a woman who is married to a man.” 4But Abimelech had not come near her. So he said, “Lord, will you also kill righteous people? 5Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister?’ And she also said to me, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and with clean hands have I done this.” 6God said to him in a dream, “I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart, so I also kept you from sinning against me and did not let you touch her. 7Return the wife to her husband, for he is a prophet. He will speak for you, and you will live. But if you do not return her, you will surely die, you and all who belong to you.” 8Abimelech got up early in the morning and called all his servants. When he told them everything that had happened, they were very afraid. 9Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you, that you have brought such great sin on me and my kingdom? You have done to me what you should not have done!” 10Then Abimelech said to Abraham, “What was it that made you think this way?” 11Abraham replied, “I thought, ‘Surely the fear of God is not in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ 12After all, she is my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; she became my wife. 13When God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘Show me this kindness: Everywhere we go, say, ‘He is my brother.’” 14Then Abimelech took sheep and cattle, male and female slaves, and gave them to Abraham, and returned his wife Sarah to him. 15Abimelech said, “See, my land is before you; dwell wherever it pleases you.” 16To Sarah he said, “See, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver; it will be a covering of the eyes of all who are with you, so that you may be justified before everyone.” 17Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his maidservants, so that they could bear children. 18For the Lord had closed up all the wombs of Abimelech’s household because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
1The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and did to her what he had promised. 2Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. 3Abraham named his son whom Sarah bore to him Isaac. 4On the eighth day Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, as God had commanded him. 5Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6Then Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh.” 7And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would have borne him children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” 8The child grew and she weaned him. On the day Isaac was weaned, Abraham made a great feast. 9When Sarah saw that the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, was mocking her son, 10she said to Abraham, “Cast out that slave woman and her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not share in the inheritance with my son Isaac!” 11This was very distressing to Abraham, because he was his son. 12But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy or about the slave woman. Listen to Sarah in all that she tells you, for your descendants will be named through Isaac. 13I will also make the son of the slave woman into a great nation, because he is your offspring.” 14So Abraham got up early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting the child on her shoulder and sending her away. She went and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. 15When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. 16She went and sat down a distance away, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot bear to see the child die.” She sat down opposite and wept aloud. 17But God heard the boy’s cry, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the boy’s cry where he is. 18Get up, take the boy and hold him in your hand, for I will make him a great nation.” 19Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a spring of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. 20God was with the boy. When he grew up, he lived in the wilderness and became an archer. 21Then he settled in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife from Egypt. 22At that time Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything you do. 23Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my descendants after me, but that as I have dealt faithfully with you, so you will deal with me and with the land in which you have been a stranger.” 24Abraham said, “I swear it!” 25Then Abraham rebuked Abimelech because of the well of water that Abimelech’s servants had seized. 26Abimelech replied, “I do not know who has done this. You did not tell me, nor did I hear of it until now.” 27So Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant. 28Then Abraham set apart seven ewe lambs from the flock. 29Abimelech asked Abraham, “What do these seven ewe lambs mean?” 30He replied, “Take these seven ewe lambs from me as a witness that I dug this well.” 31That is why that place was called Beersheba, because the two of them swore an oath there. 32So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army returned to the land of the Philistines. 33Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called on the name of the Lord, the Eternal God, there. 34Abraham lived in the land of the Philistines many days.
1After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2Then God said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will tell you about.” 3Early in the morning Abraham saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him and his son Isaac. After he had cut the wood for the burnt offering, he rose up and went to the place that God had told him about. 4On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place from a distance. 5He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while the boy and I go over there and worship God and then come back to you.” 6Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac. He himself took the fire and the knife, and they went together. 7Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” He said, “What do you want, my son?” Isaac said, “Look, the fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” 8Abraham said, “God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So they both went on together. 9When they came to the place God had told them about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on the wood. 10Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. 11Then the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” He answered, “Here I am!” 12The angel said to him, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” 13Abraham looked around and saw a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord Will Provide.” As it is said to this day, “On the mountain of the Lord it will provide.” 15The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven again 16and said, “I swear by myself,” declares the Lord, “because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17that in blessing I will bless you and in multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the sky and as the sand on the seashore; and your descendants will take possession of the gate of their enemies. 18Because you have obeyed my voice, all the nations of the earth will be blessed in your descendants.” 19Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they all went together to Beersheba, where Abraham was living. 20After these things, it was told Abraham, “Milcah has borne sons to your brother Nahor: 21Uz his firstborn, Buz his brother, Kemuel the father of Aram, 22Chesed, Haza, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel.” 23Bethuel became the father of Rebekah. These eight Milcah bore to Abraham’s brother Nahor. 24His concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bore Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.
1Sarah lived to be one hundred and twenty-seven years old; that was Sarah’s age. 2She died at Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan. Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. 3Then Abraham got up from before his dead and said to the Hittites, 4“I am a foreigner and a sojourner among you. Give me a place among you for a burial place, that I may bury my dead there.” 5The Hittites answered Abraham, 6“My lord, hear us; you are a prince among us; bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will withhold from you his burial place.” 7Then Abraham stood up and bowed down to the Hittites, the people of the land, and said, 8“If it is your will that I bury my dead here, listen to me and intercede for me with Ephron son of Zohar, 9that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which is at the end of his field, and let him sell it to me in your presence as a possession for a burial site for the full price in silver.” 10Now Ephron was sitting among the Hittites. Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of all the Hittites who had gone to the gate of his city, saying, 11“No, my lord, listen to me. I give you the field and the cave that is in it; I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead there.” 12Abraham bowed down to the people of the land 13and said to Ephron in their presence, “Listen to me. I will pay you the full price for the field in silver. Take it from me, and I will bury my dead there.” 14Ephron answered Abraham, 15“My lord, listen to me. The field is worth four hundred shekels of silver. What is that between me and you? Bury your dead.” 16Abraham agreed and weighed out to Ephron four hundred shekels of silver, current with the merchant, just as he had asked in the hearing of the Hittites. 17So Ephron’s field in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field and the cave in it, all the trees in it, and all the surrounding land, 18became Abraham’s possession in the presence of all the Hittites who went in at the gate of their city. 19Then Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah, opposite Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan. 20So Abraham acquired the field and the cave in it as a burial place from the Hittites.
1Abraham was old and well advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed him in everything. 2Abraham said to the oldest servant in his house, who was in charge of all that he had, “Put your hand under my thigh! 3I make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live, 4but you will go to my country and to my relatives and take a wife for my son Isaac.” 5The servant said to him, “What if the woman is not willing to come with me to this land? Shall I then take your son back to the land from which you came?” 6Abraham said to him, “Don’t you dare take my son back there! 7The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my birth, spoke to me and swore to me, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’ He will send his angel before you, and you shall choose a wife for my son. 8But if the woman is not willing to go with you, you shall be free from this oath; only do not take my son there.” 9Then the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore to him. 10The servant took ten camels from his master’s herd and departed. He also took with him various valuables from his master. He set out for Aram Naharaim, the city of Nahor. 11At evening, the time when women usually go out to draw water, he made the camels kneel down outside the city by a well. 12He said, “O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show kindness to my master Abraham. 13Look, I am standing here by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. 14Let the girl to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar so that I may drink,’ and she will say, ‘Drink, and I will also water your camels.’ Let her be the one you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.” 15As soon as he had finished speaking, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor. 16The girl was very beautiful to look at, a virgin who had never known a man. She went down to the spring, filled her jar, and went up. 17The servant ran to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water to drink from your jar.” 18She said, “Drink, my lord!” and quickly lowered her jar to his hand and gave him a drink. 19When he had finished drinking, she said, “I will also draw water for your camels, so that they may drink.” 20She quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran to the well to draw more water to water all his camels. 21The man watched her in silence to see whether the Lord had made his journey successful or not. 22When the camels had finished drinking, the man took out a gold nose ring weighing half a shekel and two gold bracelets weighing ten shekels of gold for her arms. 23He said, “Tell me, whose daughter are you? Is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?” 24She answered him, “I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.” 25She added, “We have both straw and fodder, and a place to spend the night.” 26The man bowed down and worshiped the Lord. 27He said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his kindness and his faithfulness to my master. The Lord has led me to the house of my master’s relatives.” 28The young woman ran and told her mother’s household what had happened. 29Rebekah had a brother named Laban. Laban ran out to the man at the spring. 30When he saw the nose ring and the bracelets on his sister Rebekah’s arms, and when he heard the words the man spoke to her, he went out to the man, who was still standing by the camels at the spring. 31He said, “Come in, you blessed of the Lord, why are you standing outside? I have prepared the lodging and a place for the camels.” 32So the man went into the house. Laban unharnessed the camels and gave them straw and fodder. He gave the man and the men who were with him water to wash their feet. 33But when he set the food before him, he said, “I will not eat until I have told you why I have come.” They said, “Speak!” 34He said, “I am Abraham’s servant. 35The Lord has greatly blessed my master, and he has become wealthy. He has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male and female servants, camels and donkeys. 36Sarah, my master’s wife, bore my master a son in her old age, and he has given him everything he has. 37My master made me swear, saying, ‘You shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I live, 38but you shall go to my father’s house and get a wife for my son from my relatives.’ 39And I said to my master, ‘What if the woman is unwilling to follow me?’ 40And he said to me, ‘The Lord, before whom I walk, will send his angel with you, and you will prosper in your journey, and you will get a wife for my son from my relatives, from my father’s house. 41If you go to my relatives and they do not give her to you, then you will be free from this oath, and you will be free from my curse.’ 42When I came to the spring today, I said, ‘O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, if the journey I am on succeeds, 43see, I am standing by the spring; and when the camel comes out to draw water, I will say, “Please give me a little water from your jar to drink.” 44And if she says to me, “Drink, and I will draw for your camels also,” let her be the woman whom the Lord has appointed for my master’s son.’ 45I had barely finished speaking when Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder and went down to the spring. When she had finished drawing water, I said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’ 46She quickly lowered her jar from her shoulder and said, ‘Drink, and I will also water your camels.’ So I drank, and she watered the camels too. 47I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She answered, ‘I am the daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bore to him.’ Then I put the ring in her nose and the bracelets on her arms. 48I bowed down and worshiped the Lord and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me on the right path to take the daughter of my master’s relative for his son. 49Now tell me whether you will show kindness and faithfulness to my master. If not, tell me, and I will turn to the right or to the left.” 50Laban and Bethuel answered, “The matter comes from the Lord; we cannot say yes or no. 51Here is Rebekah. Take her and go, and let her be your master’s son’s wife, as the Lord has spoken.” 52When Abraham’s servant heard this, he bowed down to the ground before the Lord. 53Then he took out silver and gold jewelry and clothes and gave them to Rebekah. He also gave valuable gifts to her brother and her mother. 54Then they ate and drank, and the servant and the men who were with him spent the night there. When they got up in the morning, the servant said, “Send me away to my master.” 55But her brother and mother said, “Let the girl stay with us at least ten days, and then she can go.” 56But he said to them, “Do not detain me, since the Lord has made my journey successful. Send me away so that I can go to my master.” 57They said, “We will call the girl and see what she says.” 58So they called Rebekah and asked her, “Will you go with this man?” She said, “I will go.” 59So they sent away Rebekah, their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham’s servant and his men. 60They blessed Rebekah and said to her, “Our sister, may you be the mother of thousands of thousands; may your descendants possess the gate of their enemies!” 61Rebekah and her maids got up, mounted the camels, and followed the man. So the servant took Rebekah and went away. 62Isaac was coming from Beer-lahai-roi, for he lived in the Negev. 63At dusk, Isaac went out to the field. As he looked around, he saw camels coming. 64Rebekah looked around and saw Isaac. She got down from the camel. 65She asked the servant, “Who is that man walking in the field to meet us?” The servant answered, “It is my master.” She took her veil and covered herself. 66Then the servant told Isaac everything he had done. 67Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah’s tent. You married her, loved her, and found solace in her after the death of your mother.
1Abraham took a second wife, whose name was Keturah. 2She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. 3Jokshan bore Sheba and Dedan. The sons of Dedan were Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim. 4The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. All these were the sons of Keturah. 5Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac, 6but to the sons of the concubines he had, he gave gifts and sent them away from his son Isaac while he was still alive to the east country. 7Abraham lived a hundred and seventy-five years; 8and then he died. Abraham died in a good old age, old and full of days, and was gathered to his people. 9His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite. 10Abraham had bought the field from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried with his wife Sarah. 11After Abraham died, God blessed his son Isaac. Isaac lived at Beer-lahai-roi. 12This is the genealogy of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s maidservant, bore to him. 13These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names and clans: Nebaioth, the firstborn of Ishmael, then Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, 14Mishma, Dumah, Massa, 15Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. 16These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, according to their settlements and their camps. Twelve tribal leaders. 17Ishmael lived a hundred and thirty-seven years, and he died. He died and was gathered to his people. 18His descendants lived from Havilah to Shur, east of Egypt as you go toward Assyria. They lived to the east of all their brothers. 19This is the genealogy of Abraham’s son Isaac: Abraham was the father of Isaac. 20When he was forty years old, he took Rebekah as his wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean. 21Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. The Lord listened to him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. 22But when the sons struggled together in her womb, she said, “If this is the case, why is this happening to me?” So she inquired of the Lord. 23The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb. Two peoples will be separated from you. One nation will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” 24When the time came for her to give birth, there were twins in her womb. 25The first one came out red and hairy like a hairy man. He was named Esau. 26Afterwards his brother came out, holding onto Esau’s heel with his hand. So he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when they were born. 27The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field. Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. 28Isaac loved Esau, because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. 29One day when Jacob was cooking food, Esau came to him from the field, and he was weary. 30He said to Jacob, “Please feed me with some of that red stew, for I am weary.” That is why he was named Edom. 31Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright today!” 32Esau replied, “I am about to die; what good is this birthright to me?” 33Jacob said, “Swear to me today!” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34Jacob then gave Esau bread and stew. He ate and drank, then got up and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
1Now there was a famine in the land, but not like the famine that had been in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Gerar to live with Abimelech, king of the Philistines. 2The Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land that I will tell you about. 3Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and bless you. I will give all these lands to you and your descendants. I will fulfill the oath I swore to your father Abraham, saying, 4‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give all these lands to your descendants. And in your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed.’ 5This is because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my commands, my decrees, my statutes, and my laws.” 6So Isaac stayed in Gerar. 7When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister.” He was afraid to admit that she was his wife, for he thought, “The men here might kill me because of Rebekah, because she is very beautiful.” 8When he had lived there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. 9Abimelech called Isaac and said to him, “Surely she is your wife! Why did you say she was your sister?” Isaac replied, “I said so because I feared my life for her.” 10Abimelech said, “What have you done to us? A man might have slept with your wife, and you would have brought great guilt on us.” 11So Abimelech commanded all the people, “Anyone who touches this man or his wife will be put to death.” 12Isaac sowed in that land, and that year he reaped a hundredfold, because the Lord had blessed him. 13The man grew and became very wealthy. 14He had flocks and herds and a large household of servants. The Philistines envied him. 15The Philistines had stopped up and filled with dust all the wells that Isaac’s father Abraham’s servants had dug. 16Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we are!” 17So Isaac left there and camped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there. 18Isaac dug again the wells that his father Abraham had dug, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died. He gave them the same names as his father. 19While Isaac’s servants were digging in the Valley of Gerar, they found a well of spring water. 20But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “This is our water!” That is why the well was named Esek, because they quarreled with him. 21Then they dug another well, but they quarreled over that one too, and they named it Sitnah. 22He moved on from there and dug another well, but they did not quarrel over it anymore. He named it Rehoboth, saying, “Now the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.” 23Isaac moved on from there to Beersheba. 24The Lord appeared to him there by night and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.” 25Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. There he pitched his tent, and Isaac’s servants dug a well there. 26Then Abimelech from Gerar came to him, along with his friend Ahuzzath and Phicol the commander of his army. 27Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, since you hate me and have sent me away from you?” 28They answered, “We saw clearly that the Lord was with you. So we said, ‘Let there be a covenant between us and you, 29that you will not harm us, just as we have not harmed you. We have done nothing but good to you and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord.’” 30Then he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. 31They rose early in the morning and swore an oath to him. Then Isaac sent them away in peace. 32That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug, saying, “We have found water!” 33He called it Shibeah, which is why the city is still called Beersheba. 34When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. 35They made life miserable for Isaac and Rebekah.
1When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could not see, he called his older son Esau and said, “My son!” He answered, “Here I am!” 2Then he said, “Look, I am old and I don’t know the day of my death. 3Take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt some game for me. 4Make me some tasty food, for you know what I like. Bring it to me so that I can eat and bless you before I die.” 5Rebekah was listening as Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau went out to the field to hunt for game and bring it back, 6Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “I heard your father say to your brother Esau, 7‘Bring me some of your game and prepare for me some tasty food, so that I may eat it and bless you before the Lord before I die.’ 8So my son, obey me in everything I tell you. 9Go to the flock and bring me two good young goats from there, so that I can prepare some tasty food for your father, the kind he loves. 10Then you will take it to your father, so that he may eat it and bless you before he dies.” 11But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, “My brother Esau is a hairy man, and I have smooth skin. 12Perhaps my father will feel me and think I am mocking him, and I will bring a curse on myself instead of a blessing.” 13But his mother said to him, “May the curse fall on me, my son. Only obey me and go and get them for me.” 14So he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and she prepared the kind of food his father loved. 15Then Rebekah took the best clothes of her older son Esau, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. 16She put the skins of the goats on his hands and on his bare neck. 17Then she gave the food she had prepared and the bread she had prepared to her son Jacob. 18When he came to his father, he said, “My father!” He said, “Here I am.” “Who are you, my son?” 19Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done as you commanded me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may bless me.” 20But Isaac said to his son, “How did you find it so quickly, my son?” He said, “The Lord your God enabled me to do it.” 21Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near, my son, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are my son Esau or not.” 22Jacob went near his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” 23He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands. So he blessed him. 24And he said to him, “Are you my son Esau?” And he said, “I am.” 25And Isaac said to him, “Bring it to me, that I may eat of my son’s venison, that I may bless you.” So he brought it to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank. 26Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come near, my son, and kiss me.” 27And he came near and kissed him. When he smelled the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said, “Look, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed. 28May God give you of the dew of heaven and the abundance of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine! 29May peoples serve you and tribes bow down to you. Rule over your brothers and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!” 30As soon as Isaac had blessed Jacob, Jacob had barely left his father Isaac’s presence, his brother Esau came in from his hunting. 31He also prepared tasty food and brought it to his father. He said, “My father, please get up and eat some of your son’s game, so that you may bless me.” 32His father Isaac asked him, “Who are you?” He answered, “I am your son, your firstborn, Esau.” 33Then Isaac was very afraid and said, “Who was it that brought me game? I ate everything before you came. I blessed him, and he will be blessed.” 34When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with a great and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me too, my father!” 35He said, “Your brother came with deceit and has taken your blessing.” 36Esau said, “He is rightly named Jacob. He has deceived me these two times. He took my birthright, and now he has taken my blessing.” Then he said, “Have you no blessing for me?” 37Isaac said to Esau, “See, I have made him your lord, and all his brothers I have given to him as servants. I have sustained him with grain and wine. What can I do for you, my son?” 38Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” Then Esau wept loudly and bitterly. 39His father Isaac said to him, “Your dwelling place will be without the fertility of the earth, without the dew of heaven. 40Your sword will devour you, but you will serve your brother. When you become strong, you will throw his yoke off your neck.” 41Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. Esau said to himself, “When the days of mourning for my father come, I will kill my brother Jacob.” 42When Rebekah heard what her older son Esau had said, she called her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Your brother Esau is plotting revenge against you. He intends to kill you. 43Now, my son, obey me. Go to my brother Laban in Haran. 44Stay with him for a while until your brother’s anger turns away from you and he forgets what you did to him. Then I will send for you and bring you from there. Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?” 46Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am disgusted with living among the Hittite women. If Jacob takes a wife from the Hittite women of the land, what good will my life be to me?”
1Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him. He commanded him, “Do not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. 2Go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father, and take a wife from there from the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. 3May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, so that you may become a company of peoples. 4May he give you the blessing of Abraham to you and to your descendants, so that you may take possession of the land in which you are a stranger, which God gave to Abraham.” 5Then Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother. 6Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he had commanded him, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.” 7Now Esau saw that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan-aram. 8When Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan were not pleasing to Isaac his father, 9he went to Ishmael and took Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wives. 10Jacob left Beersheba and went to Haran. 11When he came to the place where he had spent the night, because the sun was setting, he took one of the stones that were there and put it under his head and lay down there. 12He had a dream in which he saw a ladder set on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13The Lord stood above him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants. 14Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth. You will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. 15I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it!” 17He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God! This is the gate of heaven.” 18Jacob got up early in the morning, took the stone that he had put under his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. 19He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city used to be Luz. 20Then Jacob vowed a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothing to wear, 21so that I return safely to my father’s house, then the Lord will be my God. 22This stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will surely give you a tenth.”
1Then Jacob continued on his journey and came to the land of the people of the East. 2He saw a well in the field, and there were three flocks of sheep lying by it, for they were watering the flocks from it. The stone on its mouth was large. 3When all the flocks were driven there, they rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered the sheep. Then they rolled the stone back over the mouth of the well. 4Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where are you from?” They said, “We are from Haran.” 5He asked them, “Do you know Laban, Nahor’s son?” They said, “We know him.” 6He asked them, “Is he well?” They said, “Well, and here is his daughter Rachel coming with the sheep.” 7He said, “It is still a long way from evening; it is not time to gather the flocks. Water the sheep and go and pasture them.” 8They said, “We cannot, until all the flocks are gathered together. Then we will roll the stone from the well’s mouth and water the sheep.” 9While he was still talking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep. She was tending the sheep. 10When Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his mother’s brother Laban, and his sheep, he went over and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and watered the sheep of his mother’s brother Laban. 11Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept loudly. 12Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s relative and Rebekah’s son. She ran to tell her father. 13When Laban heard that Jacob, his sister’s son, had come, he ran to meet him, embraced him, kissed him, and brought him to his house. Then he told Laban all that had happened. 14Laban said to him, “You are indeed my bone and my flesh!” Jacob stayed with him for a whole month. 15Then Laban said to Jacob, “Just because you are my relative, should you serve me for nothing? Tell me, what should your wages be?” 16Laban had two daughters. The older was named Leah and the younger Rachel. 17Leah had soft eyes, but Rachel was beautiful and beautiful. 18Jacob loved Rachel and said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter.” 19Laban said, “It is better for me to give her to you than to give her to another man. Stay with me.” 20So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because he loved her. 21Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in to her.” 22Laban called together all the men of the place and prepared a feast. 23But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and he went in to her. 24Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah to serve. 25In the morning Jacob saw that it was Leah. Jacob said to Laban, “What have you done to me? Didn’t I serve you for Rachel? Why have you deceived me?” 26Laban replied, “It is not our custom to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older. 27Finish the week of this one, and I will give you the second one for whom you will serve another seven years.” 28Jacob did so and completed her week. Then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife. 29Laban gave Rachel his maid Bilhah as his maid. 30Jacob went in to Rachel and loved her more than Leah. Then he served him another seven years. 31When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb, but Rachel remained barren. 32Leah conceived and bore a son and named him Reuben. She said, “The Lord has looked upon my affliction; now my husband will love me.” 33She conceived again and bore a son and said, “The Lord has heard that I am unloved; therefore he has given me this one also.” She named him Simeon. 34She conceived again and bore a son and said, “Now my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore they named him Levi. 35She conceived again and bore a son and said, “Now I will praise the Lord.” Therefore they named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing.
1When Rachel saw that she was barren, she became jealous of her sister and said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I will die!” 2Jacob was angry with Rachel and said, “Am I in the position of God to withhold from you the fruit of your womb?” 3She said, “Here is my maid Bilhah; go in to her and have children on my knees, that I too may have children through her.” 4She gave him her maid Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her. 5Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. 6Then Rachel said, “God has judged; he has listened to my voice and has given me a son.” Therefore she named him Dan. 7Rachel’s maid Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. 8Then Rachel said, “I have wrestled with God’s handmaids against my sister, and I have prevailed.” Therefore she named him Naphtali. 9When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her maidservant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. 10Leah’s maidservant Zilpah also bore Jacob a son. 11Leah said, “How happy I am!” So she named him Gad. 12Leah’s maidservant Zilpah also bore Jacob a second son. 13Leah said, “Happy is my wife! The women will call me blessed.” So she named him Asher. 14One day Reuben went out to the field during the wheat harvest. He found mandrakes and brought them to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, “Give me some of your son’s mandrakes.” 15But she said to her, “Is it a small thing that you have taken my husband? Will you also take my son’s mandrakes?” Rachel said to her, “Then Jacob will sleep with you tonight in exchange for your son’s mandrakes.” 16When Jacob came in from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, “Come in to me, for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he lay with her that night. 17God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. 18Then Leah said, “God has rewarded me because I gave my maidservant to my husband.” So she named him Issachar. 19Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. 20Then Leah said, “God has endowed me with a precious gift; now my husband will dwell with me.” I have borne him six sons. So she named him Zebulun. 21Then she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah. 22Then God remembered Rachel and listened to her and opened her womb. 23She conceived and bore a son and said, “God has taken away my reproach.” 24She named him Joseph, saying, “May the Lord add another son to me!” 25When Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may return to my own country. 26Give me my wives for whom I have served you and my children, that I may go. You know how I have served you.” 27Laban said to him, “Oh, that I may find favor in your sight! I have learned by signs that the Lord has blessed me for your sake. 28Appoint what wages I should give you.” 29Jacob answered him, “You know how I have served you and how your flocks have prospered while I was with them. 30The little you had before I came has increased greatly, and the Lord has blessed you wherever I have gone. But when will I provide for my own household?” 31Laban asked him, “What shall I give you?” Jacob said, “Don’t give me anything. If you agree to my proposal, then I will continue to feed and care for your sheep. 32Let me pass through all your flock today. Let me separate from them all the speckled and spotted ones. Every dark-colored sheep and speckled and spotted goats will be my wages. 33My righteousness will speak for me tomorrow, saying, ‘When you come to look at my wages, every one that is not speckled or spotted among the goats and dark-colored among the sheep will be considered stolen.’ 34Laban said, “Okay, let it be as you wish.” 35That day Laban separated the striped and spotted goats and all the spotted and spotted goats. He put all the white in them and all the black among the sheep in the care of his sons. 36Then he measured the distance between himself and Jacob, who was tending Laban’s other flocks. 37Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar, almond, and plane trees and stripped some of their bark, so that the strips shone white. 38He placed the stripped rods in the watering troughs where the water flowed, so that the flocks would have them in front of them when they came to drink, for that was when they were in season. 39When the sheep and goats were in season before the rods, they would bring forth striped, spotted, and speckled lambs. 40Jacob separated the lambs, but he drove the flocks toward the striped and all the dark-colored ones in Laban’s flock. So he made his own flocks, not joining them with Laban’s flocks. 41When the stronger sheep were mating, Jacob would place the rods in the water troughs so that they would mate before them. 42When the sheep were weak, he would not place them. The weaker ones would belong to Laban, but the stronger ones to Jacob. 43The man became very wealthy, and he had many sheep, goats, female and male servants, camels, and donkeys.
1Jacob heard Laban’s sons talking among themselves, “Jacob has taken everything that belonged to our father. He has gained all this wealth from what belonged to our father.” 2Jacob saw that Laban’s face was not as kind to him as before. 3Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.” 4Then Jacob sent for Rachel and Leah to the field where he was grazing his flock. 5He said to them, “I see that your father’s attitude toward me is not as it was before. But the God of my father has been with me. 6You know that I have worked hard to serve your father. 7But your father has deceived me and changed my wages ten times. But God did not allow him to harm me. 8If he said, ‘The speckled ones will be your wages,’ then all the flocks bore speckled lambs; but if he said, ‘The striped ones will be your wages,’ then all the flocks bore speckled lambs. 9So God has taken the flock away from your father and given it to me. 10When the flocks were in heat, I looked up and saw in a dream that the male lambs that were mating with the female lambs were streaked, speckled, and spotted. 11Then an angel of God appeared to me and said, ‘I am the one who is in heat.’ In a dream he said to me, ‘Jacob!’ I answered, ‘Here I am!’ 12He said, ‘Look up and see that all the males that jump on the females are striped, speckled, and spotted. I have seen all that Laban has done to you. 13I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar and where you made a vow. Now get out of this land and go back to the land of your relatives.’” 14Rachel and Leah said to him, “Do we still have any share or inheritance in our father’s house? 15Has he not treated us like foreigners? He has sold us and squandered our earnings. 16All the wealth that God has taken from our father belongs to us and to our children. Do everything that God has commanded you.” 17Then Jacob got up, put his sons and his wives on camels, 18and took all his livestock and all the goods he had acquired in Paddan Aram to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan. 19When Laban had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father’s household gods. 20Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was fleeing. 21Then he fled with everything he had. He crossed the Euphrates River and set out for the hill country of Gilead. 22On the third day, Laban was told that Jacob had fled. 23So he took his brothers with him and pursued him for seven days until he overtook him in the hill country of Gilead. 24That night God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream and said to him, “Be careful not to speak to Jacob in a friendly way.” 25Laban caught up with Jacob, who was pitching his tent in the hill country. He and his brothers were also camped in the hill country of Gilead. 26Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done? You have deceived me and taken my daughters as captives of war! 27Why have you run away from me secretly and robbed me? I would have sent you away with joy, with songs, with tambourines, and with harps. 28You did not even let me kiss my grandchildren and my daughters. You acted foolishly. 29It is in my power to do you harm, but the God of your father said to me yesterday, ‘Be careful not to speak to Jacob in peace.’ 30Since you have already left me because you longed for your father’s house, why have you stolen my gods?” 31Jacob said to Laban, “I was afraid, for I thought you would take my daughters by force. 32But whoever you find your gods with, let him not live. Search through what is mine in the presence of our brothers, and take what is yours.” For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them. 33Laban went into Jacob’s tent, and into Leah’s tent, and into the tent of their two maidservants, but he found nothing. He went out of Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s tent. 34Rachel, however, had taken the household gods and hidden them in the camel’s saddle and sat on them. When Laban searched through the entire tent, he found nothing. 35Rachel said to her father, “Do not be angry, my lord, that I cannot rise up before you; the way that women are has happened to me.” So he searched, but he did not find the gods. 36Then Jacob became angry and said to Laban, “What have I done wrong? What have I done wrong, that you have pursued me so hard? 37When you have searched through all my belongings, what have you found in your household? Put it here before my brothers and your brothers, so that they may judge between us. 38These twenty years I have been with you. Your sheep and goats have never miscarried, and I have never eaten any of your flocks. 39I have never shown you anything torn by wild animals. I have always replaced it. Whether it was stolen by night or by day, you have always required it from me. 40By day the heat consumed me and the cold by night, and my sleep has gone from my eyes. 41These twenty years I have served you in your house; fourteen for your two daughters and six for your flocks, and you have changed my wages ten times. 42If the God of my father had not been with me, The God of my father Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, you would surely have sent me away empty-handed! But God has looked on my affliction and the toil of my hands, and rebuked you last night.” 43Then Laban answered Jacob, “These daughters are my daughters, these sons are my sons, and these flocks are my flocks; all that you see is mine. What can I do today for my daughters or for their children whom they have borne? 44Come now, let us make a covenant together, and let God be a witness between you and me.” 45Then Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. 46He said to his brothers, “Bring stones.” So they gathered stones and made a heap and ate there. 47Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed. 48Then Laban said, “This heap is a witness between you and me today.” That is why it is called Galeed. 49That is, Mizpah, because Jacob said, “The Lord watch over you and me when we are absent from each other. 50If you mistreat my daughters or if you take other wives besides them, even though no one is with us, God is a witness between you and me.” 51Laban said to Jacob, “Look, here is this heap and here is this pillar, which I have set up between you and me. 52This heap is a witness and this pillar is a witness that I will not pass over this heap and that you will not pass over this pillar to harm one another. 53May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.” Then Jacob swore by the God who had struck fear in the heart of his father Isaac. 54Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and invited his brothers to the sacrifice. They ate and spent the night on the mountain.
1Laban rose up early in the morning, kissed his sons and daughters, blessed them, and returned home. 2As Jacob went on his way, the angels of God met him. 3When he saw them, he said, “This is God’s camp.” So he called the name of that place Mahanaim. 4Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. 5He commanded them, “This is what you are to say to my lord Esau: ‘Your servant Jacob says this: I have stayed with Laban until now. 6I have oxen, donkeys, sheep, male and female servants. I am sending a message to my lord, so that I may find favor in your sight.’” 7The messengers returned to Jacob and said, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you with four hundred men.” 8Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. So he divided the people who were with him, as well as the flocks, herds, and camels, into two camps. 9He said, “When Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, the other camp will escape.” 10Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord, you promised me, ‘Return to your country and your relatives, and I will do you good.’ 11I am not worthy of all the kindness and faithfulness that you have shown your servant. With only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. 12Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid that he will come and attack me, the mother with the children. 13You promised me, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted for multitude.’” 14He spent the night there, and then he selected a gift for his brother Esau: 15two hundred female goats, twenty male goats, two hundred ewes, twenty rams, 16thirty camels with their young, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty female donkeys, and ten male donkeys. 17He handed them over to his servants, one herd at a time, and said, “Go ahead and keep some distance between the herds.” 18He commanded the first one, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks you, ‘Who are you and where are you going?’ and ‘Whose are these things are with you?’ 19you shall say, ‘They are a gift from your servant Jacob, sent to his lord Esau, and he is also behind us.’” 20He gave the same instructions to the second, the third, and all the others who had the herds. “Say this to Esau when you meet him: 21‘Your servant Jacob is also coming behind us. You said, ‘I will appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and then I will show myself to him. Perhaps he will accept me.’” 22The present went ahead of him, but he stayed overnight in the camp. 23Jacob got up during the night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons and crossed the Jabbok. 24He took them and led them across the ford, along with everything he had. 25Jacob was left alone, and someone wrestled with him until daybreak. 26When he saw that he could not prevail against him, he struck his hip joint. Then Jacob’s hip was dislocated as he wrestled. 27He said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 28He asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.” 29He said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.” 30Then Jacob asked him, “Tell me your name.” He said, “Why do you want to know my name?” There he blessed him. 31Jacob called the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” 32As he passed Penuel, the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip. 33Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon of the hip joint, because the tendon of Jacob’s hip was cut.
1When Jacob looked around and saw Esau coming with four hundred men, he divided the children between Leah, Rachel, and the two maidservants. 2He put the two maidservants and their children in front, Leah and her children in second place, and Rachel and Joseph at the end. 3He himself crossed over before them and bowed down to the ground seven times until he came very close to his brother. 4Esau ran to meet his brother, embraced him, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. They both wept. 5When Esau looked around and saw the women and their children, he said, “Who are these with you?” Jacob replied, “They are my children, whom God has given your servant.” 6Then the maidservants and their children came forward and bowed down. 7Leah also came forward with her children and bowed down. Last of all, Rachel and Joseph came forward and bowed down. 8Esau asked, “What kind of flocks are these that I met?” Jacob replied, “I want to find favor in the sight of my lord.” 9He said, “I have enough, my brother; keep what is yours for yourself.” 10Jacob said, “No! If I have found favor in your eyes, accept this present from my hand. I have seen your face as if I had seen the face of God, and you have been kind to me. 11Please accept this present from me as a greeting, for God has generously blessed me, and I have enough.” When he urged him, he accepted the present. 12He said, “Let us set out on our journey together, and I will go with you.” 13But Jacob said, “My lord knows that my children are tender and that I am caring for the flocks and herds that are nursing. If I drive them for just one day, all the flocks will die. 14Let my lord go ahead of his servants, but I will walk slowly, according to the strength of the flocks and the strength of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.” 15Then Esau said, “Please let some of those who are with me go with you on the journey.” But he said, “No, but let me find favor in the sight of my lord.” 16That day Esau set out on his way back to Seir. 17Jacob set out for Succoth, where he built a house and made shelters for his flocks. Therefore the name of the city is called Succoth. 18 Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, on his way from Paddan-aram, and settled opposite the city. 19 He bought a plot of land from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of silver, and pitched his tent there. 20 There he built an altar and called it God is the God of Israel.
1Now Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. 2When Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he took her and lay with her and violated her. 3But his soul was drawn to Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, and he loved her and desired to win her heart. 4Then Shechem said to Hamor his father, “Get me this girl as my wife.” 5Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter. But he kept quiet until his sons came in from the field with his flocks. 6Shechem’s father Hamor went out to Jacob to talk to him. 7When Jacob’s sons came in from the field and heard about it, they were angry and very angry. He had done a disgraceful thing in Israel by defiling Jacob’s daughter. 8But Hamor said to them, “My son Shechem longs for your daughter. Now then, give her to him as a wife. 9Let us become one flesh; give us your daughters and take our daughters for ourselves. 10Dwell with us, and the land will be open to you. Stay here, and live here.” 11Then Shechem said to her father and her brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and I will give you whatever you ask. 12Ask me any dowry or gift you want, and I will give you whatever you ask. Only give me the girl as a wife.” 13The sons of Jacob, because they had defiled their sister Dinah, answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully, saying, 14“We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised, for that would be a disgrace to us. 15If only you would be like us, if every male among you were circumcised, then we would agree with you. 16Then we will give you our daughters, and we will take your daughters for ourselves, and we will live with you, and we will become one people. 17But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and go.” 18Their plan pleased Hamor and his son Shechem. 19The young man did not hesitate to do the thing, because he delighted in Jacob’s daughter. He was the most honored of all his father’s household. 20And Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of the city, saying, 21“These men are peaceable with us; let them dwell in the land, and let them move about freely in it, for the land is large and spacious enough for them. We will take their daughters to us as wives, and we will give them our daughters. 22The men will only stay with us if every male among us is circumcised as they are circumcised, and we will become one people. 23Will not their flocks, their possessions, and all their livestock be ours? Only let us consent, and they will dwell with us.” 24All the men who went out of the gate of their city listened to Hamor and his son Shechem and were circumcised. 25On the third day, when they were in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and entered the city secretly and killed all the males. 26They also killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the edge of the sword, took Dinah from Shechem’s house, and went away. 27Then Jacob’s sons came upon the slain and plundered the city because they had defiled their sister. 28They took the sheep, the cattle, the donkeys, and everything that was in the city and in the field. 29They carried off all their possessions, including all the women and children, and plundered everything that was in the houses. 30Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me, for now I am abhorred by the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the inhabitants of the land. I am few in number; if they join forces against me, they will defeat me and destroy me and my household.” 31But they said, “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?”
1God said to Jacob, “Get up, go up to Bethel and settle there. Make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.” 2Then Jacob said to all his household, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. 3Let us arise, and go up to Bethel, and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and was with me on the way I went.” 4Then they gave him all the foreign gods that were in their hands, along with the rings that were in their ears. Jacob buried them under the oak that was by Shechem. 5Then they left. The fear of God fell on all the cities around them, so that they did not pursue Jacob’s sons. 6Then Jacob and all the people who were with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan. 7There he built an altar and called the place El-Bethel, because it was there that God had appeared to him when he fled from his brother. 8At that time Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died. She was buried under an oak below Bethel. He named it El-Bethel. 9God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Paddan-aram and blessed him. 10He said to him, “Your name has been Jacob until now. Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel will be your name.” So God named him Israel. 11He said to him, “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations will come from you. Kings will come from you. 12The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and to your descendants I will give it.” 13Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him. 14Jacob set up a pillar in the place where God had spoken with him, and he poured a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. 15Jacob called the name of the place where God spoke with him Bethel. 16They traveled from Bethel. They were still some distance from Ephrath when Rachel began to give birth, and she had great difficulty in giving birth. 17When she was in hard labor, the midwife said to her, “Don’t be afraid, you will have a son again.” 18As her life was drawing to a close, she named her son Ben-oni, but his father called him Benjamin. 19Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). 20Jacob set up a pillar over her grave. It is Rachel’s pillar to this day. 21Israel then traveled from there and pitched his tent beyond Migdal-eder. 22While he was living in that land, Reuben went and slept with Bilhah, his father’s concubine. But Israel heard about it. Jacob had twelve sons. 23The sons of Leah were Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. 24The sons of Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin. 25The sons of Rachel’s maidservant Bilhah: Dan and Naphtali. 26The sons of Leah’s maidservant Zilpah: Gad and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram. 27Then Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, at Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had lived. 28Isaac lived to be one hundred and eighty years old. 29He died in a good old age and was gathered to his people, an old man of good years. His sons Esau and Jacob buried him.
1This is the genealogy of Esau, that is, Edom. 2Esau took his wives from the Canaanites: Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, Oholibamah the daughter of Anah, the granddaughter of the Hivite Zibeon, 3and Basemath the daughter of Ishmael, sister of Nebaioth. 4Adah bore Eliphaz to Esau, and Basemath bore Reuel. 5Oholibamah bore Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. These are the sons of Esau who were born to him in Canaan. 6Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the members of his household, as well as his livestock, his cattle, and all his possessions that he had acquired in Canaan, and went away from his brother Jacob to go to Seir. 7For they were so rich that they could not live together, for the land in which they were living could not support them because of their livestock. 8Esau settled in the hill country of Seir. Esau is Edom. 9These are the descendants of Esau, the ancestor of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir. 10These are the names of Esau’s sons: Eliphaz, the son of Esau’s wife Adah, and Reuel, the son of Esau’s wife Basemath. 11The sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz. 12The concubine of Esau’s son Eliphaz was Timna, who bore him Amalek. These were the sons of Esau’s wife Adah. 13The sons of Reuel were Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah. These were the sons of Esau’s wife Basemath. 14The sons of Esau’s wife Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon, whom she bore to him: Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. 15These are the chiefs of the sons of Esau: the sons of Eliphaz, Esau’s firstborn: chief Teman, chief Omar, chief Zepho, chief Kenaz, 16chief Korah, chief Gatam, chief Amalek. These are the chiefs of Eliphaz in the land of Edom. These are the sons of Adah. 17These are the sons of Reuel, Esau’s son: chief Nahath, chief Zerah, chief Shammah, chief Mizzah. These are the chiefs of Reuel in the land of Edom; these are the sons of Esau’s wife Basemath. 18These are the sons of Esau’s wife Oholibamah: chief Jeush, chief Jalam, chief Korah. These are the chiefs of Esau’s wife Oholibamah the daughter of Anah. 19These are the sons of Esau and their chiefs. This is Edom. 20These are the sons of Seir the Horite, the firstborn of the land: Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah, 21Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan. These are the chiefs of the Horites, the sons of Seir in the land of Edom. 22The sons of Lotan were Hori and Hemam. Lotan’s sister was Timna. 23The sons of Shobal were Alvan, Manahath, Ebal, Shepho, and Onam. 24The sons of Zibeon were Aiah and Anah. This is the Anah who found the hot springs in the desert as he was grazing the donkeys of his father Zibeon. 25These are the children of Anah: Dishon the son and Oholibamah the daughter. 26The sons of Dishon were Hemdan and Eshban, Ithran and Cheran. 27The sons of Ezer were Bilhan, Zaavan, and Akan. 28The sons of Dishan were Uz and Aran. 29These are the chiefs of the Horites: chief Lotan, chief Shobal, chief Zibeon, chief Anah, 30chief Dishon, chief Ezer, chief Dishan. These are the chiefs of the Horites according to their families in the land of Seir. 31These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before there was a king over the Israelites: 32Bela son of Beor reigned in Edom, and the name of his city was Dinhabah. 33After Bela died, Jobab son of Zerah from Bozrah reigned. 34After Jobab died, Husham from the land of the Temanites reigned. 35After Husham died, Hadad son of Bedad, who defeated Midian in the field of Moab, reigned. The name of his city was Avith. 36After Hadad died, Samlah from Masrekah reigned. 37After Samlah died, Shaul from Rehoboth-on-the-River reigned. 38After Saul died, Baal-hanan son of Achbor reigned. 39After Baal-hanan son of Achbor died, Hadar reigned. His city was called Pau, and his wife’s name was Mehetabel, the daughter of Matred and granddaughter of Me-zahab. 40These are the names of the chiefs of Esau, according to their families and places, by their names: Chief Timna, Chief Alvah, Chief Jetheth, 41Chief Oholibamah, Chief Elah, Chief Pinon, 42Chief Kenaz, Chief Teman, Chief Mibzar, 43Chief Magdiel, Chief Iram. These are the chiefs of Edom according to their settlements in the land they conquered. This is Esau, the father of the Edomites.
1Jacob settled in the land of Canaan, where his father had been a foreigner. 2These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flock with his brothers, and he lived with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. Joseph brought his father a bad report about them. 3Israel loved Joseph more than all his other sons, for he was the son of his old age, and Jacob made him a coat of many colors. 4When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his other sons, they hated him and could not speak to him kindly. 5Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. 6He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7We were in the field binding sheaves. My sheaf rose and stood still, and your sheaves bowed down to my sheaf.” 8Then his brothers said to him, “Do you really want to reign over us? Do you really want to rule over us?” They hated him even more because of his dreams and his words. 9Joseph had another dream and told it to his brothers. He said, “I had another dream. The sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” 10He told it to his father and his brothers. But his father rebuked him, saying, “What is this dream? What is this dream you had? Will I, your mother, and your brothers really come to bow down to you to the ground?” 11So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father remembered it. 12When his brothers went to pasture their father’s sheep near Shechem, 13Israel said to Joseph, “Your brothers are grazing near Shechem. Come, I will send you to them.” He replied, “Here I am.” 14Israel said to him, “Go and see if it is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring me word again.” So he sent him from the Valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. 15There a man found him wandering in the field and asked him, “What are you looking for?” 16He replied, “I am looking for my brothers; tell me where they are grazing.” 17The man said to him, “They have left here. I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan. 18When they saw him in the distance, and before he came near them, they decided to kill him. 19They said to one another, “Look, the dreamer is coming! 20Come, let’s kill him! Then we will throw him into the pit and say that a wild animal has devoured him. We will see what will become of his dreams.” 21When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands and said, “Let’s not take his life.” 22Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood! Throw him into this pit in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him.” He wanted to rescue him from their hands and bring him to his father. 23When Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his colorful clothes. 24Then they took him and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty, there was no water in it. 25As they sat down to eat, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were carrying balm, balm, and myrrh, which were on their way to Egypt. 26Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? 27Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let us not lay hands on him, for he is our own brother.” And his brothers listened to him. 28When Midianite traders passed by, his brothers pulled Joseph out of the cistern and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, who took him to Egypt. 29When Reuben returned to the cistern, and Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. 30He returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is not there. Where shall I go?” 31Then they took Joseph’s clothes, killed a goat, and dipped his clothes in the blood. 32They took the colorful coat to their father and said, “We found this. See if it is your son’s coat or not.” 33When he saw it, he said, “It is my son’s coat. A wild animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.” 34Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son for a long time. 35All his sons and all his daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, “I will go down to the grave mourning for my son.” Thus his father wept for him. 36The Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard.
Parallel Genesis 38 Judah and Tamar 1At that time Judah went down from his brothers and went to a certain Adullamite named Hirah. 2There Judah saw a Canaanite woman named Shua, and he married her and went in to her. 3She conceived and bore a son, and Judah named him Er. 4She conceived again and bore a son and named him Onan. 5She bore a son again and named him Shelah. It was at Chezib that she bore him. 6Judah gave his firstborn Er a wife named Tamar. 7Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord killed him. 8Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife in the way you would do to your brother’s wife. Take her as your wife and raise up offspring for your brother.” 9But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, so whenever he went in to his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground, so that he would not give offspring to his brother. 10But the Lord was displeased, so he killed him too. 11Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up.” But he said, “Only let him not die like his brothers.” So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house. 12After many days Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah was over the mourning, he went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers with his friend Hirah the Adullamite. 13Then Tamar was told, “Look, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.” 14She took off her widow’s clothes, took a veil, covered herself, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For Tamar knew that Shelah had grown up, but she had not become his wife. 15When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, because she had covered her face. 16He turned to her as she was on the road and said, “Please let me come in to you.” For he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said to him, “What will you give me to come in to me?” 17He said, “I will send you a young goat from the flock.” She said, “But give me some pledge until you send it.” 18Judah asked her, “What pledge should I give you?” She said, “Your signet ring and cord, and the staff that is in your hand.” He gave them to her. He went in to her, and she conceived. 19Then she arose and went away. She took off her veil and put on her widow’s garments again. 20Then Judah sent the kid of the goats to his friend the Adullamite to receive the pledge he had given her from the woman’s hand, but he could not find her. 21He asked the men of the place, “Where is the prostitute who was at Enaim?” They answered him, “There was no prostitute here.” 22He returned to Judah and said, “I did not find her. The men of the place also said, ‘There was no prostitute here.’” 23Judah said, “Let her alone, so that we will not be ridiculed. I sent her this kid of the goats, but you did not find her.” 24About three months later, Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has played the harlot, and she has conceived by prostitution.” Judah said, “Bring her out and burn her!” 25As they were leading her, she said to her father-in-law, “I have conceived by the man to whom these belong,” and added, “See whose the signet ring, cord, and staff belong to.” 26When Judah saw it, he said, “She is more righteous than I, because I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he had no more relations with her. 27When the time came for her to give birth, it was discovered that she was carrying twins. 28As she was giving birth, one of the twins put out his hand. The midwife tied a scarlet thread around it, saying, “This one will come out first.” 29But he drew back his hand, and his brother came out. She said, “What breach did you make?” Therefore she named him Perez. 30Afterwards his brother came out who had the scarlet thread on his hand. They named him Zerah.
1When Joseph was brought down to Egypt from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there, Potiphar, an Egyptian, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, bought him. 2But the Lord was with Joseph, and he prospered, and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian. 3His master saw that the Lord was with him and that he blessed him in all that he did. 4Joseph found favor in his sight and served him. Potiphar made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. 5From the time the Egyptian had made him overseer of his house, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake. The Lord’s blessing was on everything he had in the house and in the field. 6So he left all that he had in Joseph’s care, and he cared for nothing except the bread he ate. Joseph was a handsome man and a handsome appearance. 7After these things, his master’s wife looked intently at Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” 8But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, my master has not been concerned with anything in the house while I am here, because he has entrusted all that he has to me. 9No one in this house is greater than me. The Lord has not kept anything for himself except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” 10Although she spoke to Joseph day after day, he did not listen to her to lie with her or to be with her. 11One day, when he went to do his usual work, none of the men in the house was there. 12She caught hold of his cloak and said, “Lie with me.” But he left his cloak in her hand, ran outside, and fled. 13When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had fled outside, 14she called to her maidservants and said, “Look, they have brought in a Hebrew to us to mock us. He came in to lie with me, and I screamed. 15When he heard that I raised my voice, he left his cloak with me and ran out and ran away.” 16She left his cloak with her until her master came home. 17She also told him the same thing: “The Hebrew servant you brought to us came in to mock me. 18When I screamed, he left his cloak with me and ran away.” 19When Joseph’s master heard the words of his wife, who said to him, “This is what your slave did to me,” he was very angry. 20He had Joseph arrested and put in prison with the king’s prisoners. So Joseph was in prison. 21But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy and gave him favor in the eyes of the keeper of the prison. 22The keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Joseph was in charge of everything that was done there. 23The keeper of the prison did not look after anything that was put in his care, because the Lord was with Joseph and made everything he did successful.
1Now it came to pass in the days of Pharaoh, that the butler of the king of Egypt and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their lord the king of Egypt. 2And Pharaoh was wroth with the two officers, the chief butler and the chief baker. 3And he put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison, where Joseph was bound. 4And the captain of the guard put them in Joseph’s charge, and he waited on them: and they remained in ward in prison a long time. 5And the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt dreamed dreams: and each man dreamed a dream of a certain meaning in the night. 6And Joseph came unto them in the morning, and, behold, they were sad. 7And he said unto Pharaoh’s officers that were with him in ward in his lord’s house, Why look ye so sad to day? 8And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no one to interpret it unto us. Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me!” 9So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream: “In my dream, I saw a vine in front of me, 10and there were three branches on it. As soon as the vine budded, it blossomed and its clusters ripened. 11Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand. I squeezed the grapes into Pharaoh’s cup and put it into his hand.” 12Joseph said to him, “This is the interpretation of the dream: The three branches are three days. 13After three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position. You will again serve Pharaoh’s cup, as you did when you were his cupbearer. 14When it goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness and intercede for me with Pharaoh to bring me out of this house. 15I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, but here too I have done nothing wrong to deserve being put in prison.” 16When the chief baker saw that Joseph had interpreted the dream well, he said to him, “I too had a dream. I had three baskets of baked goods on my head. 17In the top basket there were baked goods for Pharaoh, and the birds ate them out of the basket on my head.” 18Joseph answered, “This is the interpretation of the dream: The three baskets are three days. 19After three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and hang you on a gallows, and the birds will peck at your flesh.” 20After three days, on his birthday, Pharaoh made a feast for all his officials and promoted the chief cupbearer and the chief baker before them. 21He restored the chief cupbearer to his former position, so that he could serve Pharaoh’s cup. 22But he had the chief baker hanged, just as Joseph had interpreted to them. 23But the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.
1After two years Pharaoh had a dream: He was standing by the Nile River. 2And behold, seven cows came up out of the Nile River, sleek and fat, and they grazed on the bank of the Nile. 3After them, seven other cows came up out of the Nile River, ugly and gaunt, and stood beside the first cows on the bank of the Nile. 4Then the ugly and gaunt cows ate up the seven sleek and fat cows. Then Pharaoh woke up. 5He fell asleep again and had another dream: Seven heads of grain, full and beautiful, grew on one stalk. 6After them, seven heads of grain, scorched by the east wind, grew up. 7The dry heads of grain devoured the seven full and full heads of grain. Then Pharaoh woke up. It was a dream. 8In the morning Pharaoh was very angry, so he called for all the magicians and wise men of Egypt and told them his dreams. But there was no one to interpret them to Pharaoh. 9Then the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh, “Today I remember my guilt. 10When Pharaoh was angry with his servants, he put me and the chief baker in prison in the house of the captain of the guard. 11One night each of us had a dream, each with his own meaning. 12There was a young Hebrew servant of the captain of the guard with us. When we told him our dreams, he interpreted them for us; each one interpreted his own dream. 13As he interpreted them for us, so it happened. I was restored to my place, and the other was hanged.” 14Then Pharaoh called Joseph, and they brought him out of the dungeon. He shaved his head, changed his clothes, and stood before Pharaoh. 15Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I had a dream, and no one can interpret it for me. I have heard that you can interpret it by telling me a dream.” 16Joseph answered Pharaoh, “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh a satisfying answer.” 17Then Pharaoh told his dream to Joseph: “I dreamed that I was on the bank of the Nile. 18Seven fat, sleek cows came up out of the Nile and grazed on the marshland. 19After them, seven other cows came up, ugly and gaunt. I had never seen anything so ugly in all Egypt. 20The ugly, gaunt cows ate up the seven fat cows. 21They went into the fields, but no one could tell they were there, for they were still as ugly as before. Then I woke up. 22Then I saw in my dream that seven heads of grain were growing on one stalk. 23After them, seven thin, withered heads of grain were growing, scorched by the east wind. 24The withered heads of grain ate up the seven sleek heads of grain. I told the magicians about it, but none of them could tell me what had happened. "He couldn't explain it to me." 25Joseph said to Pharaoh, “Pharaoh’s dreams all mean one thing. God is telling Pharaoh what he is about to do. 26The seven good cows are seven years. The seven good heads of grain are seven years. It is the same dream. 27The seven thin and ugly cows that came up after them are seven years, just as the seven empty heads of grain scorched by the east wind are seven years of famine. 28This is what I have told Pharaoh; God has shown what he will do. 29There are coming seven years of great plenty throughout all Egypt. 30After them, seven years of famine will come, and the plenty will be forgotten throughout all Egypt. The famine will destroy the whole land. 31The plenty will not be remembered in the land because of the great famine that will follow. 32The dream was repeated to Pharaoh, because God has determined to bring it about soon. 33Now look, Pharaoh, after a discreet and wise man, and set him over the land of Egypt. 34Let Pharaoh appoint overseers over the land, and take up a fifth of the produce of Egypt during the seven plenteous years. 35Let them gather all the food during the coming plenteous years, and let them lay up the grain in the cities under the charge of Pharaoh, and let them be in charge of it. 36Let this food be for the land to be a reserve against the seven years of famine that will come upon Egypt, so that it may not perish from the famine.” 37The idea pleased Pharaoh and all his servants. 38Then Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this in whom the Spirit of God is?” 39Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has shown you all this, there is no one as discreet and wise as you. 40You will be in charge of my house, and all my people will obey your orders; only in my throne will I be greater than you.” 41Pharaoh added, “See, I have put you in charge of all Egypt.” 42Then Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand. He clothed him in fine linen clothes and put a gold chain around his neck. 43He had him ride in the second-best chariot, and he shouted before him, “Bow down!” So he was made ruler over all Egypt. 44Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I am Pharaoh, but without you no one shall lift up hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.” 45Pharaoh changed Joseph’s name to Zaphenath-paneah, and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Poti-phera, priest of On, as his wife. Joseph went throughout Egypt. 46Joseph was thirty years old when he was presented to Pharaoh king of Egypt. Then Joseph went out from Pharaoh and traveled throughout all Egypt. 47For seven years of abundant harvests, the land produced plenty. 48During the seven years of abundance, Joseph gathered up all the food that was in Egypt and stored it in the cities. In each city he stored food from the fields around it. 49Joseph stored up as much grain as the sand of the sea, so much that it could not be counted, because it could not be counted. 50Before the year of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph, whom Asenath, the daughter of Poti-phera, priest of On, bore to him. 51Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh, for he said, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father’s family.” 52He named the second Ephraim, for he said, “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.” 53The seven years of plenty in Egypt ended, 54and the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had said. The famine spread throughout all the lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was plenty of bread. 55When all Egypt was famished, and the people cried to Pharaoh for bread, Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph and do whatever he tells you.” 56When the famine spread throughout the land, Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe in Egypt. 57All the countries came to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe in all the land.
1When Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why are you standing here looking around?” 2He said, “I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down and buy some, so that we may live and not die.” 3So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. 4But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he said, “Perhaps misfortune will overtake him.” 5The sons of Israel went up with those who went down to buy grain in Egypt, for the famine was also in Canaan. 6Now Joseph was the governor of Egypt, and it was he who sold grain to all the people. When his brothers came to him, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. 7When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he did not show it to them. He spoke to them roughly, as if they were strangers. He asked them, “Where have you come from?” They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.” 8Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. 9Then Joseph remembered the dreams he had dreamed about them and said to them, “You are spies! You have come to see the open country of the land.” 10They answered, “No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food. 11We are all the sons of one man; we are strong men. Your servants are not spies.” 12But he said, “No! You have come to see the open country of the land.” 13They answered, “We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. The youngest is now with our father, and one is no more.” 14But Joseph said to them, “It is as I said, you are spies. 15I will test you by this: As surely as Pharaoh lives, you will not leave this place unless you bring your youngest brother to me. 16Send one of you to bring him to me, and the rest of you will be put in prison. Then your words will be tested, whether they are true or not. As surely as Pharaoh lives, you are spies.” 17Then Joseph put them in prison for three days. 18On the third day, Joseph said to them, “I fear God. Do this if you want to live: 19If you are brave, let one of you stay in prison. The rest of you go home and take grain for your starving households. 20But bring your youngest brother to me. Then your words will be tested, and you will not die.” So they did so. 21They said to each other, “We have truly sinned against our brother. We saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen to him; therefore this distress has come upon us.” 22Reuben said to them, “Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you would not listen to me. Now his blood is upon us.” 23They did not know that Joseph understood them, for he spoke to them through an interpreter. 24Joseph turned away from them and wept. Then he turned back to them and spoke to them. Then he took Simeon from among them and bound him before their eyes. 25Then Joseph commanded to fill all their bags with grain, to restore each man’s money in his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. And they did so. 26They loaded the grain onto their donkeys and set out. 27When one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the place where they had camped for the night, he saw his money in the top of his sack. 28He called out to his brothers, “He has given me back my money! Here it is in my sack!” Then their hearts melted and they trembled, saying to one another, “What is this that God has done to us?” 29When they came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan, they told him everything that had happened to them. 30“The man, the lord of the land, treated us harshly, as if we were spies. 31We assured him that we were honest men and that we were not spies. 32We were twelve brothers, sons of one father; one is no more, and the youngest is now with our father in Canaan. 33The man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘By this I will know whether you are honest men, if you leave one of your brothers with me. Take grain for your hungry households and go. 34When you bring your youngest brother to me, then I will know that you are not spies but honest men. Then I will release your brother to you, and you may travel freely in the land.’” 35As they emptied their sacks, each of them found a bag of money in his sack. When they and their father saw that the money was in their sacks, they were terrified. 36Then their father Jacob said to them, “You have robbed me of my children. Joseph is gone, Simeon is gone, and you want to take Benjamin away from me. All this has happened to me!” 37Then Reuben said to his father, “You can kill my two sons if I do not bring Benjamin back to you. Give him to me, and I will bring him back to you.” 38But he said, “My son will not go down with you; his brother is dead, and he is left alone. If harm befalls him on the way you are going, you will bring down my gray hairs in sorrow to Sheol.”
1But the famine was severe in the land. 2When they had used up all the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go back and buy us a little food.” 3Judah said, “The man solemnly warned us, ‘You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.’ 4If you decide to send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food. 5But if you refuse to let him go, we will not go down. The man told us, ‘You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.’” 6Then Israel said, “Why did you treat me so badly by telling the man that you had another brother?” 7They answered, “The man kept asking about us and our family. He asked, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ We only told him what he wanted to know. Did we know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother back!’” 8Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me, so that we can go on our journey. Then we will live and not die, neither we nor you nor our children. 9I will be surety for him. Demand him from me. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, I will bear the blame for my life. 10If we had not stayed here so long, we could have returned twice.” 11Then their father Israel said to them, “If that is the case, do this: Take some of the best fruits of the land and carry down a gift to the man: a little balm, a little honey, mastic, frankincense, pistachios, and almonds. 12Take double the money in your hands. Return the money that was found in the top of your sacks. Perhaps it was a mistake. 13Take your brother with you. Go back to the man. 14May God Almighty show you mercy before the man, so that he will send back your other brother and Benjamin. If I am left without children, I will be left.” 15So the men took the gift, double the money, and Benjamin. They got up and went to Egypt and stood before Joseph. 16When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, “Take the men home, slaughter an animal, and prepare it, for these men will dine with me.” 17The steward did as Joseph had commanded him, and brought the men into Joseph’s house. 18But the men were afraid when they were brought into Joseph’s house, for they said, “They are surely bringing us out because of the money that was found in our sacks. Now they will fall on us, overcome us, and take us and our donkeys as slaves.” 19So they approached the steward of Joseph’s house and spoke to him at the entrance. 20They said to him, “Please, sir, we have come down here to buy food. 21But when we came to the place where we spent the night, we opened our sacks and found each of us with the full amount of our money in the top of our sacks. Now we are bringing it back ourselves. 22We have also brought money to buy food. We do not know who put our money in our sacks.” 23But the steward said to them, “Do not be afraid. Your God, the God of your father, has put treasure in your sacks. I have received your money.” Then he brought Simeon to them. 24When the steward brought the men into Joseph’s house, he gave them water to wash their feet and gave their donkeys fodder. 25In the meantime, they prepared a gift for Joseph when he came at noon, for they had heard that they would eat lunch there. 26When Joseph entered the house, they presented him with the gift and bowed down to the ground. He asked them how they were. 27He asked, “Is your old father, of whom you spoke to me, well? Is he still alive?” 28They answered, “Your servant our father is well; he is still alive.” Then they bowed down and bowed down to him. 29When he looked up, he saw his brother Benjamin, his mother’s son. He asked, “Is this your youngest brother, the one you told me about?” He said, “May God be gracious to you, my son.” 30Then Joseph hurried away. He was deeply moved; he was moved to tears by his brother’s presence. He went into the next room and wept. 31Then he washed his face and came out. Then he said, “Bring food.” 32They served him by himself, them by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, for the Egyptians may not eat with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians. 33The brothers sat before him, from the firstborn to the youngest, according to their ages. Each one was amazed that they were seated according to their ages. 34Then he served them food from his own table. But Benjamin was served five times more than the others. They drank and made merry with him.
1Then Joseph commanded his steward, “Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man’s money in his sack’s mouth. 2But put my silver cup in the mouth of the youngest’s sack, along with his food money.” The steward did as Joseph commanded him. 3The next morning, at daybreak, they dressed the men and their donkeys. 4When they had gone out of the city and were not far off, Joseph said to the steward, “Go, hurry after the men, and when you catch up with them, say to them, ‘Why have you rewarded them with evil for good? 5Did you not steal the silver cup, which my master drinks from and from which he divines? You have done very wickedly in doing this.’” 6When he caught up with them, he repeated these words to them. 7They answered him, “Why does my lord say this? It is far from the mind of your servants to do such a thing. 8Look, the money we found in the mouths of our sacks we brought back from Canaan. How could we steal silver or gold from your lord’s house? 9With whomever of your servants it is found, let him die, and the rest of us will become slaves to our lord!” 10He said, “Very well, let it be as you say. The one with whom it is found will be my slave, and the rest of you will be innocent.” 11Each of them quickly lowered his sack to the ground, and each opened it. 12Then he searched from the oldest to the youngest, and the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack. 13Then each of them tore his clothes, loaded his donkey, and returned to the city. 14So Judah and his brothers came to Joseph’s house, where he was still there, and they fell to the ground before him. 15Joseph said to them, “What is this thing you have done? Did you not realize that a man like me can divine?” 16Judah replied, “What can we say to my lord? What can we say? How can we make a defense? God himself has brought this upon his servants because of their iniquity. Now, my lord, we are your servants, both we and the one in whose possession the cup was found.” 17But he said, “Far be it from me to do such a thing. Only the one in whose hand the cup was found will be my slave. The rest of you can go up to your father in peace.”18Then Judah came near to him and said, “Please, my lord, let your servant speak a few words to my lord. Do not be angry with your servant, for you are like Pharaoh! 19My lord asked his servants, ‘Do you still have a father or a brother?’ 20We said to my lord, ‘We have a father who is old and a young brother born to him in his old age. His brother is dead, and he is the only son of his mother, and his father loves him.’ 21But you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, that I may see him with my own eyes.’ 22We said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father, for if he leaves him, his father will die.’ 23But you said to your servants, ‘If your youngest brother does not come down with you, do not show your face to me.’ 24So we went up to your servant our father and told him everything my lord had said. 25Our father said, ‘Go back and buy a little food.’ 26We said to him, ‘We cannot go down unless our youngest brother goes down with us. Otherwise, we will not go down. We cannot see the man’s face unless he goes down with us.’ 27Then your servant our father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me only two sons. 28One of them went away from me, and I said, ‘A wild animal has torn him to pieces.’ He is no more. 29If you take this one from me also, and harm befalls him on the way, you will bring down my gray hairs to Sheol in sorrow.’ 30How then can I go back to your servant my father if the boy, on whom he delights with all his soul, is not with us? 31When he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. Your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father in sorrow. 32Your servant swore to his father for the boy, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, for ever.’ 33Now therefore, let your servant remain a slave to my master instead of the boy, and let the boy go up with his brothers. 34How can I go up to my father if the boy is not with me? How can I see the suffering that would come upon my father?”
1Joseph could no longer restrain himself. He called out to all who stood around him, “Everybody, leave!” So no one was there when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. 2Then he wept loudly and bitterly. The Egyptians and Pharaoh’s household heard it. 3Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?” But his brothers were so astonished that they could not say a word to their brother. 4Joseph said to them, “Come closer to me!” When they came near, he said, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. 5Now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves for selling me here, for God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. 6For the famine has been in the land for two years, and there are still five years in which there will be no plowing or harvesting. 7God sent me ahead of you to prepare provisions for you in the land, and to save you a great deliverance. 8It was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me Pharaoh’s counselor, lord of his entire household, and ruler of all Egypt. 9Hurry up and go back to my father and say to him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; do not delay. 10You shall live in the land of Goshen, near me, you and your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds, and all that you have. 11There you shall be I will provide for you, for there are still five years of famine, so that you and your household and all that you have will not come to poverty.’ 12You and my brother Benjamin can see that it is I who am speaking to you. 13Tell my father about my great honor in Egypt and about everything you have seen. Hurry and bring him here.” 14He threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck. 15He kissed all his brothers as he wept, and then his brothers spoke to him. 16The news reached Pharaoh’s house, saying, “Joseph’s brothers have come.” This pleased Pharaoh and his servants. 17Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Tell your brothers, ‘Do this: Load your animals and go to the land of Canaan. 18Take your father and your families and come to me, and I will give you the best of Egypt; you will eat the best of the land.’ 19Command them, ‘Do this: Take wagons from Egypt for your little ones and your wives; bring your father and come. 20Do not be sad about anything you leave behind, for you will get the best of Egypt.’” 21The Israelites did so, and Joseph gave them wagons and provisions for the journey, as Pharaoh had commanded. 22He gave each of them a change of clothes, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver and five changes of clothes. 23He sent this to his father: ten donkeys loaded with the best of Egypt, and ten donkeys loaded with grain, bread, and provisions for their father on the way. 24Then he sent his brothers away. As they were leaving, he said to them, “Don’t quarrel on the way.” 25So they left Egypt and came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan. 26They told him, “Joseph is still alive, and he is governor over all Egypt.” But their father did not believe them, for he did not believe them. 27They told him everything Joseph had said to them. When Jacob saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, his spirit revived. 28Then Israel said, “It is enough that my son Joseph is still alive! Let me go and see him before I die.”
1Israel set out with all that he had. When he arrived at Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. 2God spoke to Israel in a vision at night and said, “Jacob! Jacob!” He answered, “Here I am!” 3He said to him, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. 4I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up from there. Joseph’s own hand will close your eyes.” 5So Jacob set out from Beersheba. The sons of Israel loaded their father Jacob, their children, and their wives into the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to carry him. 6They took their livestock and the possessions they had acquired in Canaan with them and came to Egypt—Jacob and all his descendants. 7He brought all his descendants to Egypt—his sons, grandsons, daughters, and granddaughters. 8These are the names of the Israelites who came to Egypt—Jacob and his sons: Jacob’s firstborn was Reuben. 9The sons of Reuben: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. 10The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a Canaanitish woman. 11The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. 12The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah. But Er and Onan died in Canaan. The sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul. 13The sons of Issachar: Tola, Puah, Job, and Shimron. 14The sons of Zebulun: Sered, Elon, and Jahleel. 15These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram. There she also bore him his daughter Dinah. All his sons and daughters were thirty-three. 16The sons of Gad: Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli. 17The sons of Asher: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beriah, and their sister Serah. The sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel. 18These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah, and she bore them to Jacob. All the sons were sixteen. 19The sons of Jacob’s wife Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. 20In Egypt, Manasseh and Ephraim were born to Joseph, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, bore to him. 21The sons of Benjamin: Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard. 22These are the sons of Rachel, whom she bore to Jacob; fourteen in all. 23The sons of Dan: Hushim. 24The sons of Naphtali: Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem. 25These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to Rachel his daughter, and she bore them to Jacob; all the souls were seven. 26All the souls who came with Jacob into Egypt, the sons of his body, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, were sixty-six. 27Two sons were born to Joseph in Egypt. All the souls of Jacob’s household who came into Egypt were seventy. 28Jacob sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to tell him, “Come to Goshen.” So they came to the land of Goshen. 29Joseph had his chariot prepared and went up to meet his father Israel in Goshen. When they met, he fell on his neck and wept. 30Israel said to Joseph, “Now that I have seen your face and know that you are still alive, let me die.” 31Joseph said to his brothers and his father’s household, “I will go up and tell Pharaoh, ‘My brothers and my father’s household have come to me from the land of Canaan. 32Their occupations are shepherds, and they have brought their flocks and herds and all that they have.’ 33When Pharaoh calls you and asks, ‘What is your occupation?’ 34you shall say to him, ‘Your servants have been shepherds from our youth until now, just as our fathers were.’ You say this so that you can stay in the land of Goshen, because the Egyptians have an aversion to any shepherd.”
1Joseph went and told Pharaoh, “My father and my brothers have come from the land of Canaan, with their flocks and herds and everything they own. They are now in the land of Goshen.” 2Then he chose five of his brothers and presented them to Pharaoh. 3Pharaoh asked his brothers, “What is your occupation?” They replied, “Your servants are shepherds, just as our fathers were.” 4They said to him, “We have come to live in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks, for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Please let your servants live in the land of Goshen.” 5Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Your father and brothers have come to you. 6All of Egypt is open to you. Settle your father and brothers in the best of the land. Let them live in the land of Goshen. If you think there are capable men among them, put them in charge of my livestock.” 7Joseph brought his father Jacob in and presented him to Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. 8Pharaoh asked Jacob, “How old are you?” 9Jacob answered Pharaoh, “The years of my life have been a hundred and thirty. Few and difficult have been the years of my life, and they have not reached the length of the years of my life.” 10Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from before him. 11Joseph settled his father and brothers in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. 12Joseph provided for his father and his brothers and all his father’s household, according to the number of their children. 13There was no bread in all the land; the famine was severe in Egypt and Canaan, and it consumed them. 14Joseph gathered up all the money that was in Egypt and Canaan for the grain they had sold and brought it into Pharaoh’s house. 15When the money in Egypt and Canaan failed, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us bread! Are we to die because our money is gone?” 16Joseph said to them, “If you have no money, bring your livestock, and I will sell you for your livestock.” 17So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and he gave them bread in exchange for their horses, sheep, cattle, and donkeys. That year Joseph provided them with bread for all their livestock. 18So a whole year passed. The next year they came again and said, “We will not hide from you, my lord, that our money is gone, and our livestock are yours, my lord. There is nothing left, my lord, except our bodies and our land. 19Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be slaves to Pharaoh. Only give us seed, that we may live and not die and the land not become desolate.” 20So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. All the Egyptians sold their fields, because the famine was severe on them. Thus the land became Pharaoh’s property. 21So the people of Egypt were enslaved from one end of the land to the other. 22Only the land of the priests he did not buy, because the priests received a portion from Pharaoh and lived on the portion that Pharaoh gave them. So they did not sell their land. 23Joseph said to the people, “Today I have bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Here is seed for you to sow the fields. 24But you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four parts shall be yours as seed for the field and as food for yourselves, your households, and your little ones.” 25They said, “You have saved our lives. May we find favor in the eyes of my lord! We will be Pharaoh’s slaves.” 26Joseph made it a law at that time concerning the land of Egypt, which is still in force today: Pharaoh shall have a fifth; only the land of the priests shall not become Pharaoh’s. 27The Israelites settled in Egypt, in the region of Goshen; they took possession of it, and multiplied and grew greatly. 28Jacob lived in Egypt for seventeen years. All the days of Jacob's life were one hundred and forty-seven years. 29When the time drew near for Israel to die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, "If I have found favor in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh and show me kindness and faithfulness. Do not bury me in Egypt. 30When I die with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their tomb." He said, "I will do as you say." 31Jacob said to him, "Swear to me." When he had sworn to him, Israel bowed down to the head of his bed.
1After these things Joseph was told, “Your father is sick.” So Joseph took his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, with him. 2When Jacob was told, “Your son Joseph is coming to you,” Israel sat up in bed. 3Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. 4He said to me, ‘I will make you fruitful and multiply you; I will make of you a company of peoples. I will give this land to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession.’ 5Your two sons, who were born to you in Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine from now on; Ephraim and Manasseh are mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine. 6But any children born to them after them will be yours. Their inheritance will be named after their brothers. 7When I came from Paddan in the land of Canaan, Rachel died on the way to Ephrath, and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). 8When Israel saw Joseph’s sons, he said, “Who are these?” 9Joseph said to his father, “They are my sons, whom God has given me here.” “Bring them to me,” he said, “so that I may bless them.” 10Israel’s eyes were dim with age, so that he could not see. When Joseph brought them to him, Jacob kissed them and embraced them. 11Then Israel said to Joseph, “I had not expected to see your face again, but God has shown me not only you but also your descendants.” 12When Joseph took them from his knees, he bowed down with his face to the ground. 13Joseph took both of them, Ephraim with his right hand and placed him on Israel’s left side; and Manasseh with his left hand and placed him on Israel’s right side. 14Then Israel stretched out his right hand and placed it on Ephraim’s head, although he was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, crossing his hands, although Manasseh was the firstborn. 15He blessed Joseph and said, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd from my youth to this day, 16and the Angel who redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys. May my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac. May they become many in the midst of the earth.” 17When Joseph saw that his father was laying his right hand on Ephraim’s head, it displeased him. So he took hold of his father’s hand to move it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. 18Joseph said to his father, “No, father, for this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.” 19But his father refused and said, “I know it, my son, I know it; he too will become a nation and become great. But his younger brother will be greater than he, and his descendants will become a multitude of nations.” 20That day he blessed them and said, “In your name Israel will bless, saying, ‘May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.’” So he preferred Ephraim over Manasseh. 21Then Israel said to Joseph, “I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you back to the land of your fathers. 22But I have given you one more portion than your brothers, for I took it from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with my bow.”
1Then Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what will happen to you in the future. 2Gather yourselves together and listen, you sons of Jacob, and listen to your father Israel! 3Reuben, you are my firstborn, my strength and the beginning of my strength. You are full of dignity and strength. 4You have become like water; you will not be the first, because you went up to your father’s bed and defiled him. You have lain in my bed. 5Simeon and Levi are brothers; their weapons are instruments of violence. 6May my soul not enter their circle, may my glory not be united with their company, for in their anger they slaughtered men and in their rage they hamstrung bulls. 7Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce, and their fury, for it was cruel. I will divide I will scatter them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. 8Judah, your brothers will praise you; your hand will be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's sons will bow down to you. 9Judah is a lion's whelp. You have gone up from the prey, my son. He lies down and lies down as a lion and a lioness; who will rouse him up? 10The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet, until he comes who will be ruler, to whom the obedience of the peoples will belong. 11He will bind his donkey's foal to the vine, and his donkey's colt to the vine; he will wash his clothes in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes. 12His eyes will be darker than wine, his teeth whiter than milk. 13Zebulun will dwell by the seashore, where ships will land; he will border on Sidon. 14Issachar is a bony donkey, He rests between two enclosures. 15He saw that rest was good, that the land was pleasant; he bowed his back, carried burdens, and was forced to do servitude. 16Dan will defend the cause of his people as one of the tribes of Israel. 17Dan will be a serpent by the way, a horned adder by the path, that bites the horse's heels, so that its rider falls backward. 18I wait for your salvation, O Lord! 19Gad, hordes rush at him, but he crushes them at their heels. 20Asher will have plenty of food; he will provide royal delicacies. 21Naphtali, a hind let loose, makes a delightful noise. 22Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring; his branches grow over the wall. 23They filled him with bitterness; arrows threatened him; archers attacked him. 24His bow will remain strong, his arms will remain fresh. Out of the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob will come the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel. 25May the God of your father help you! May the Almighty bless you with blessings from heaven above, blessings from the deep below, blessings of the breasts and the womb! 26May the blessings of your father be greater than the blessings of the ancient mountains and the everlasting hills. May they rest on the head of Joseph, on the crown of the head of the one who is holy among his brothers! 27Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey and at night he divides the spoil.” 28All these are the twelve tribes of Israel. This is what their father said to them as he blessed them. He blessed each of them with a special blessing. 29Then he commanded them, “When I am gathered to my people, bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, 30in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre in the land of Canaan. The field that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a buryingplace. 31There they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah, there they buried Isaac and his wife Rebekah, and there I buried Leah. 32The field and the cave were purchased from the Hittites.” 33When Jacob had finished commanding his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed and breathed his last. He was gathered to his people.
1Then Joseph fell on his father’s face and wept over him and kissed him. 2Then Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father. 3The physicians embalmed Israel for forty days, according to the number of days required for embalming. The Egyptians mourned for him for seventy days. 4When the days of mourning were over, Joseph said to Pharaoh’s officials, “If I have found favor in your eyes, please present my request to Pharaoh. 5My father made me swear, saying, ‘I am about to die. Bury me in my tomb that I dug for myself in the land of Canaan.’ Let me go up and bury my father there, and then I will return.” 6Pharaoh said, “Go up and bury my father, as you swore to me.” 7So Joseph went up to bury his father, and with him went all the servants of Pharaoh: his courtiers, all the officials of Egypt, 8all the members of Joseph’s household, his brothers, and his father’s household. Only their little ones, their flocks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen. 9They had chariots and horsemen with them, a very distinguished procession. 10When they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they held a great and solemn mourning. Joseph mourned for his father seven days. 11When the Canaanites saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “The Egyptians are mourning with a great mourning.” Therefore the place was called Abel-mizraim beyond the Jordan. 12Then his sons did as their father had commanded them. 13They carried him to Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah, which Abraham had bought from Ephron the Hittite, which was opposite Mamre, as a burial place for himself. 14After Joseph had buried his father, he returned to Egypt, along with his brothers and all who had gone up with him to bury his father. 15When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said to one another, “Let Joseph not hold a grudge against us and repay us for all that we did to him.” 16So they sent him this message: “Your father commanded before he died, 17‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: Please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin, for they did you wrong.’ Now therefore, please forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept at their words. 18Then his brothers came to him and fell down before him and said, “Here we are; we will be your slaves.” 19But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20You intended evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about what is happening today, to save many people alive. 21Now do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones.” So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. 22Joseph lived in Egypt with his father’s household, and he lived a hundred and ten years. 23He saw Ephraim’s children to the third generation. The children of Machir son of Manasseh were also born on Joseph’s knees. 24Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely visit you and bring you up from here to the land he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” 25Joseph made the Israelites swear, saying, “God will surely take care of you, and you must carry my bones up from here.” 26Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten. He was embalmed and put in a coffin in Egypt.
English 
Slovak 
Russian 
German 
French 
Spanish 
Hungarian 
Chinese 
Greek