Genesis 44-47

Genesis 44

¹Then he gave orders to the servant who was over his house, saying, Put as much food into the men's bags as will go into them, and put every man's money in the mouth of his bag;

²And put my cup, my silver cup, in the youngest one's bag, with his money. So he did as Joseph said.

³And at dawn the men, with their asses, were sent away.

⁴And when they had gone only a little way out of the town, Joseph said to the servant who was over his house, Go after them; and when you overtake them, say to them, Why have you done evil in reward for good?

⁵Is not this the cup from which my lord takes wine and by which he gets knowledge of the future? Truly, you have done evil.

⁶So he overtook them and said these words to them.

⁷And they said to him, Why does my lord say such words as these? far be it from your servants to do such a thing:

⁸See, the money which was in the mouth of our bags we gave back to you when we came again from Canaan: how then might we take silver or gold from your lord's house?

⁹If it comes to light that any of your servants has done this, let him be put to death, and we will be your lord's servants.

¹⁰And he said, Let it be as you say: he in whose bag it is seen will become my servant; and you will not be responsible.

¹¹Then every man quickly got his bag down and undid it.

¹²And he made a search, starting with the oldest and ending with the youngest; and the cup was in Benjamin's bag.

¹³Then in bitter grief they put the bags on the asses again and went back to the town.

¹⁴So Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house; and he was still there: and they went down on their faces before him.

¹⁵And Joseph said, What is this thing which you have done? had you no thought that such a man as I would have power to see what is secret?

¹⁶And Judah said, What are we to say to my lord? how may we put ourselves right in his eyes? God has made clear the sin of your servants: now we are in your hands, we and the man in whose bag your cup was seen.

¹⁷Then he said, Far be it from me to do so: but the man who had my cup will be my servant; and you may go back to your father in peace.

¹⁸Then Judah came near him, and said, Let your servant say a word in my lord's ears, and let not your wrath be burning against your servant: for you are in the place of Pharaoh to us.

¹⁹My lord said to his servants, Have you a father or a brother?

²⁰And we said to my lord, We have an old father and a young child, whom he had when he was old; his brother is dead and he is the only son of his mother, and is very dear to his father.

²¹And you said to your servants, Let him come down to me with you, so that I may see him.

²²And we said to my lord, His father will not let him go; for if he went away his father would come to his death.

²³But you said to your servants, If your youngest brother does not come with you, you will not see my face again.

²⁴And when we went back to your servant, our father, we gave him an account of my lord's words.

²⁵And our father said, Go again and get us a little food.

²⁶And we said, Only if our youngest brother goes with us will we go down; for we may not see the man's face again if our youngest brother is not with us.

²⁷And our father said to us, You have knowledge that my wife gave me two sons;

²⁸The one went away from me, and I said, Truly he has come to a violent death; and from that time I have not seen him,

²⁹If now you take this one from me, and some evil comes to him, you will make my grey head go down in sorrow to the underworld.

³⁰If then I go back to your servant, my father, without the boy, because his life and the boy's life are one,

³¹When he sees that the boy is not with us, he will come to his death, and our father's grey head will go down in sorrow to the underworld.

³²For I made myself responsible for the boy to my father, saying, If I do not give him safely back to you, let mine be the sin for ever.

³³So now let me be my lord's servant here in place of the boy, and let him go back with his brothers.

³⁴For how may I go back to my father without the boy, and see the evil which will come on my father?

Genesis 45

¹Then Joseph, unable to keep back his feelings before those who were with him, gave orders for everyone to be sent away, and no one was present when he made clear to his brothers who he was.

²And so loud was his weeping, that it came to the ears of the Egyptians and all Pharaoh's house.

³And Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph: is my father still living? But his brothers were not able to give him an answer for they were troubled before him.

⁴Then Joseph said to his brothers, Come near to me. And they came near, And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom you sent into Egypt.

⁵Now do not be troubled or angry with yourselves for sending me away, because God sent me before you to be the saviour of your lives.

⁶For these two years have been years of need, and there are still five more years to come in which there will be no ploughing or cutting of grain.

⁷God sent me before you to keep you and yours living on earth so that you might become a great nation.

⁸So now it was not you who sent me here, but God: and he has made me as a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

⁹Now go quickly to my father, and say to him, Your son Joseph says, God has made me ruler over all the land of Egypt: come down to me straight away:

¹⁰The land of Goshen will be your living-place, and you will be near me; you and your children and your children's children, and your flocks and herds and all you have:

¹¹And there I will take care of you, so that you and your family may not be in need, for there are still five bad years to come.

¹²Now truly, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see, that it is my mouth which says these things to you.

¹³Give my father word of all my glory in Egypt and of all you have seen; and come back quickly with my father.

¹⁴Then, weeping, he took Benjamin in his arms, and Benjamin himself was weeping on Joseph's neck.

¹⁵Then he gave a kiss to all his brothers, weeping over them; and after that his brothers had no fear of talking to him.

¹⁶And news of these things went through Pharaoh's house, and it was said that Joseph's brothers were come; and it seemed good to Pharaoh and his servants.

¹⁷And Pharaoh said to Joseph, Say to your brothers, Put your goods on your beasts and go back to the land of Canaan;

¹⁸And get your father and your families and come back to me: and I will give you all the good things of Egypt, and the fat of the land will be your food.

¹⁹And say to them, This you are to do: take carts from the land of Egypt for your little ones and for your wives, and get your father and come back.

²⁰And take no thought for your goods, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours.

²¹And the children of Israel did as he said; and Joseph gave them carts as had been ordered by Pharaoh, and food for their journey.

²²To every one of them he gave three changes of clothing; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred bits of silver and five changes of clothing.

²³And to his father he sent ten asses with good things from Egypt on their backs, and ten she-asses with grain and bread and food for his father on the journey.

²⁴And he sent his brothers on their way, and said to them, See that you have no argument on the road.

²⁵So they went up from Egypt and came to the land of Canaan, to their father Jacob.

²⁶And they said to him, Joseph is living, and is ruler over all the land of Egypt. And at this word Jacob was quite overcome, for he had no faith in it.

²⁷And they gave him an account of everything Joseph had said to them; and when he saw the carts which Joseph had sent for them, his spirit came back to him:

²⁸And Israel said, It is enough: Joseph my son is still living; I will go and see him before my death.

Genesis 46

¹And Israel went on his journey with all he had, and came to Beer-sheba, where he made offerings to the God of his father Isaac.

²And God said to Israel in a night-vision, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I.

³And he said, I am God, the God of your father: go down to Egypt without fear, for I will make a great nation of you there:

⁴I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will see that you come back again, and at your death Joseph will put his hands on your eyes.

⁵Then Jacob went on from Beer-sheba; and the sons of Jacob took their father and their little ones and their wives in the carts which Pharaoh had sent for them.

⁶And they took their cattle and all the goods which they had got in the land of Canaan, and came to Egypt, even Jacob and all his seed:

⁷His sons and his sons' sons, his daughters and his daughters' sons and all his family he took with him into Egypt.

⁸And these are the names of the children of Israel who came into Egypt, even Jacob and all his sons: Reuben, Jacob's oldest son;

⁹And the sons of Reuben: Hanoch and Pallu and Hezron and Carmi;

¹⁰And the sons of Simeon: Jemuel and Jamin and Ohad and Jachin and Zohar and Shaul, the son of a woman of Canaan;

¹¹And the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari;

¹²And the sons of Judah: Er and Onan and Shelah and Perez and Zerah: but Er and Onan had come to their death in the land of Canaan; and the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.

¹³And the sons of Issachar: Tola and Puah and Job and Shimron;

¹⁴And the sons of Zebulun: Sered and Elon and Jahleel;

¹⁵All these, together with his daughter Dinah, were the children of Leah, whom Jacob had by her in Paddan-aram; they were thirty-three in number.

¹⁶And the sons of Gad: Ziphion and Haggi, Shuni and Ezbon, Eri and Arodi and Areli;

¹⁷And the sons of Asher: Jimnah and Ishvah and Ishvi and Beriah, and Sarah, their sister; and the sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel.

¹⁸These are the children of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah, and Jacob had these sixteen children by her.

¹⁹The sons of Jacob's wife Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.

²⁰And Joseph had Manasseh and Ephraim in the land of Egypt, by Asenath, the daughter of Poti-phera, priest of On.

²¹And the sons of Benjamin were Belah and Becher and Ashbel, Gera and Naaman, Ehi and Rosh, Muppim and Huppim and Ard.

²²All these were the children of Rachel whom Jacob had by her, fourteen persons.

²³And the son of Dan was Hushim.

²⁴And the sons of Naphtali: Jahzeel and Guni and Jezer and Shillem.

²⁵These were the children of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Rachel, seven persons.

²⁶All the persons who came with Jacob into Egypt, the offspring of his body, were sixty-six, without taking into account the wives of Jacob's sons.

²⁷And the sons of Joseph whom he had in Egypt were two. Seventy persons of the family of Jacob came into Egypt.

²⁸Now he had sent Judah before him to Goshen, to get word from Joseph; and so they came to the land of Goshen.

²⁹And Joseph got his carriage ready and went to Goshen for the meeting with his father; and when he came before him, he put his arms round his neck, weeping.

³⁰And Israel said to Joseph, Now that I have seen you living again, I am ready for death.

³¹And Joseph said to his brothers and to his father's people, I will go and give the news to Pharaoh, and say to him, My brothers and my father's people, from the land of Canaan, have come to me;

³²And these men are keepers of sheep and owners of cattle, and have with them their flocks and their herds and all they have.

³³Now when Pharaoh sends for you and says, What is your business?

³⁴You are to say, Your servants have been keepers of cattle from our early days up to now, like our fathers; in this way you will be able to have the land of Goshen for yourselves; because keepers of sheep are unclean in the eyes of the Egyptians.

Genesis 47

¹Then Joseph went to Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brothers with their flocks and their herds and all they have, are come from Canaan, and are now in the land of Goshen.

²And he took five of his brothers to Pharaoh.

³And Pharaoh said to them, What is your business? And they said, Your servants are keepers of sheep, as our fathers were before us.

⁴And they said to Pharaoh, We have come to make a living in this land, because we have no grass for our flocks in the land of Canaan; so now let your servants make a place for themselves in the land of Goshen.

⁵And Pharaoh said to Joseph, Let them have the land of Goshen; and if there are any able men among them, put them over my cattle.

⁶And Jacob and his sons came to Joseph in Egypt, and when word of it came to the ears of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, he said to Joseph, Your father and brothers have come to you; all the land of Egypt is before you; let your father and your brothers have the best of the land for their resting-place.

⁷Then Joseph made his father Jacob come before Pharaoh, and Jacob gave him his blessing.

⁸And Pharaoh said to him, How old are you?

⁹And Jacob said, The years of my wanderings have been a hundred and thirty; small in number and full of sorrow have been the years of my life, and less than the years of the wanderings of my fathers.

¹⁰And Jacob gave Pharaoh his blessing, and went out from before him.

¹¹And Joseph made a place for his father and his brothers, and gave them a heritage in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had given orders.

¹²And Joseph took care of his father and his brothers and all his father's people, giving them food for the needs of their families.

¹³Now there was no food to be had in all the land, so that all Egypt and Canaan were wasted from need of food.

¹⁴And all the money in Egypt and in the land of Canaan which had been given for grain, came into the hands of Joseph: and he put it in Pharaoh's house.

¹⁵And when all the money in Egypt and Canaan was gone, the Egyptians came to Joseph, and said, Give us bread; would you have us come to destruction before your eyes? for we have no more money.

¹⁶And Joseph said, Give me your cattle; I will give you grain in exchange for your cattle if your money is all gone.

¹⁷So they took their cattle to Joseph and he gave them bread in exchange for their horses and flocks and herds and asses, so all that year he gave them food in exchange for their cattle.

¹⁸And when that year was ended, they came to him in the second year, and said, We may not keep it from our lord's knowledge that all our money is gone, and all the herds of cattle are my lord's; there is nothing more to give my lord but our bodies and our land;

¹⁹Are we to come to destruction before your eyes, we and our land? take us and our land and give us bread; and we and our land will be servants to Pharaoh; and give us seed so that we may have life and the land may not become waste.

²⁰So Joseph got all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh; for every Egyptian gave up his land in exchange for food, because of their great need; so all the land became Pharaoh's.

²¹And as for the people, he made servants of them, town by town, from one end of Egypt to the other.

²²Only he did not take the land of the priests, for the priests had their food given them by Pharaoh, and having what Pharaoh gave them, they had no need to give up their land.

²³Then Joseph said to the people, I have made you and your land this day the property of Pharaoh; here is seed for you to put in your fields.

²⁴And when the grain is cut, you are to give a fifth part to Pharaoh, and four parts will be yours for seed and food, and for your families and your little ones.

²⁵And they said to him, Truly you have kept us from death; may we have grace in your eyes, and we will be Pharaoh's servants.

²⁶Then Joseph made a law which is in force to this day, that Pharaoh was to have the fifth part; only the land of the priests did not become his.

²⁷And so Israel was living among the Egyptians in the land of Goshen; and they got property there, and became very great in numbers and in wealth.

²⁸And Jacob was living in the land of Goshen for seventeen years; so the years of his life were a hundred and forty-seven.

²⁹And the time of his death came near, and he sent for his son Joseph and said to him, If now I am dear to you, put your hand under my leg and take an oath that you will not put me to rest in Egypt;

³⁰But when I go to my fathers, you are to take me out of Egypt and put me to rest in their last resting-place. And he said, I will do so.

³¹And he said, Take an oath to me; and he took an oath to him: and Israel gave worship on the bed's head.