Study Desk

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

"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.'

"But we said to my lord, 'The lad cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.'

"Now, therefore, when I come to your servant my father, and the lad is not with us, since his life is bound up in the lad's life,

"Now, therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the lad a slave to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brothers.

Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried, "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 dismayed at his presence.

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

"Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me 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 when the news was heard in Pharaoh's house that Joseph's brothers had come, it pleased Pharaoh and his servants.

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 as they departed, he said to them, "Do not quarrel on the journey."

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

They took their livestock and their property, which they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and came to Egypt, Jacob and all his descendants with him:

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

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

These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram, with his daughter Dinah; all his sons and his daughters numbered thirty-three.

These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah; and she bore to Jacob these sixteen persons.