Study Desk

My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father or a brother?'

And we said to my lord, ‘We have an old father and a little child of his old age. Now his brother is dead, so he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him.'

And we said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father; if he should leave his father, his father would die.'

So now, when I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us—and his life is bound up in the boy's life—

So now, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a slave to my lord, and let the boy go up with his brothers.

Then Joseph could not restrain himself before all those who stood by him, and he called out, "Have everyone go out from me." So there was no man with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?" But his brothers could not answer him, for they were terrified at his presence.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Please come near to me." And they came near. And he said, "I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.

So now, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has set me as a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

Then he fell on his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck.

He kissed all his brothers and wept on them, and afterward his brothers talked with him.

Now the news was heard in Pharaoh's house, saying, "Joseph's brothers have come." And it was good in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants.

Now to his father he sent as follows: ten donkeys loaded with the best things of Egypt and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and sustenance for his father on the journey.

So he sent his brothers away, and they departed. And he said to them, "Do not be stirred up on the journey."

And they told him, saying, "Joseph is still alive, and indeed he is ruler over all the land of Egypt." But his heart was stunned, for he did not believe them.

So Israel set out with all that he had and came to Beersheba and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.

I Myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I Myself will also bring you up again; and Joseph will close your eyes with his hand."

And they took their livestock and their possessions, which they had accumulated in the land of Canaan, and they came to Egypt, Jacob and all his seed with him:

his sons and his grandsons with him, his daughters and his granddaughters, and all his seed he brought with him to Egypt.

Now these are the names of the sons of Israel—of Jacob and his sons—who were coming to Egypt: Reuben, Jacob's firstborn.