Study Desk

Don't worry or blame yourselves for what you did. God is the one who sent me ahead of you to save lives.

There has already been a famine for two years, and for five more years no one will plow fields or harvest grain.

Also tell your brothers to take some wagons from Egypt for their wives and children to ride in. And be sure to have them bring their father.

Jacob's sons agreed to do what the king had said. And Joseph gave them wagons and food for their trip home, just as the king had ordered.

To his father he sent ten donkeys loaded with the best things in Egypt, and ten other donkeys loaded with grain and bread and other food for the return trip.

Jacob packed up everything he owned and left for Egypt. On the way he stopped near the town of Beersheba and offered sacrifices to the God his father Isaac had worshiped.

Jacob and his family set out from Beersheba and headed for Egypt. His sons put him in the wagon that the king had sent for him, and they put their small children and their wives in the other wagons. Jacob's whole family went to Egypt, including his sons, his grandsons, his daughters, and his granddaughters. They took along their animals and everything else they owned.

So Joseph got in his chariot and went to meet his father. When they met, Joseph hugged his father around the neck and cried for a long time.

The king will call you in and ask what you do for a living.

who asked them, "What do you do for a living?" "Sir, we are shepherds," was their answer. "Our families have always raised sheep.

I will let them live anywhere they choose in the land of Egypt, but I suggest that they settle in Goshen, the best part of our land. I would also like for your finest shepherds to watch after my own sheep and goats."

Joseph also provided food for their families.

From then on, they brought him their horses and donkeys and their sheep and goats in exchange for grain. Within a year Joseph had collected every animal in Egypt.

The famine became so severe that Joseph finally bought every piece of land in Egypt for the king

but one-fifth of your crops must go to the king. You can keep the rest as seed or as food for your families."

Jacob himself lived there for seventeen years, before dying at the age of one hundred forty-seven.

Jacob turned to Joseph and told him, "For many years I thought you were dead and that I would never see you again. But now God has even let me live to see your children."

Jacob told him that in the future the people of Israel would ask God's blessings on one another by saying, "I pray for God to bless you as much as he blessed Ephraim and Manasseh." Jacob put Ephraim's name first to show that he would be greater than Manasseh.

I never want to take part in your plans or deeds. You slaughtered people in your anger, and you crippled cattle for no reason.

Our Lord , I am waiting for you to save us.