Study Desk

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

And 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:

And Jacob said to Joseph, God, the Ruler of all, came to me in a vision at Luz in the land of Canaan, and gave me his blessing,

And Joseph said to his father, They are my sons, whom God has given me in this land. And he said, Let them come near me, and I will give them a blessing.

And Israel said to Joseph, I had no hope of seeing your face again, but God in his mercy has let me see you and your children.

And he gave Joseph a blessing, saying, May the God to whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, gave worship, the God who has taken care of me all my life till this day,

So he gave them his blessing that day, saying, You will be the sign of blessing in Israel, for they will say, May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh; and he put Ephraim before Manasseh.

Then Israel said to Joseph, Now my death is near; but God will be with you, guiding you back to the land of your fathers.

Even by the God of your father, who will be your help, and by the Ruler of all, who will make you full with blessings from heaven on high, blessings of the deep stretched out under the earth, blessings of the breasts and of the fertile body:

You are to say to Joseph, Let the wrongdoing of your brothers be overlooked, and the evil they did to you: now, if it is your pleasure, let the sin of the servants of your father's God have forgiveness. And at these words, Joseph was overcome with weeping.

And Joseph said, Have no fear: am I in the place of God?

As for you, it was in your mind to do me evil, but God has given a happy outcome, the salvation of numbers of people, as you see today.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, The time of my death has come; but God will keep you in mind and take you out of this land into the land which he gave by his oath to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

Then Joseph made the children of Israel take an oath, saying, God will certainly give effect to his word, and you are to take my bones away from here.

But the women had the fear of God, and did not do as the king of Egypt said, but let the male children go on living.

And the blessing of God was on these women: and the people were increased in number and became very strong.

And because the women who took care of the Hebrew mothers had the fear of God, he gave them families.

Now after a long time the king of Egypt came to his end: and the children of Israel were crying in their grief under the weight of their work, and their cry for help came to the ears of God.

And at the sound of their weeping the agreement which God had made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob came to his mind.

Now Moses was looking after the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he took the flock to the back of the waste land and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.