Joseph and His Brothers

Jacob lived in the land of Canaan where his father had stayed. This is the story of Jacob’s family. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers. Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

Once Joseph had a dream.  He told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, “Listen to this dream, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.”

His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream.

Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers.  He said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

When he told this to his father. He scolded him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” His brothers were jealous of him.

Once Joseph brothers had gone to feed their father’s flocks at Shechem, Jacob  said to Joseph, “Go and check your brothers and folks and make sure that they are well.”

“Of course,” he replied.

When Joseph arrived at Shechem, a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?”

He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers, who are taking care of their flocks?”

“They have gone away. I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan”. So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

They saw him in the distance, and before he reached, they planned to kill him. “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into a dry well and say some wild animal killed him. Then we will see what comes of his dreams.”

Reuben, Jacob’s oldest son heard this and tried to rescue him. “Let’s not take his life. Don’t shed any blood” he said. Throw him into this well here but not hurt him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take back to his father.

When Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped his robe and threw him into the well.

 

Then they sat down to eat, they saw a group of Ishmaelites were coming. They were on the way to Egypt.

Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come; let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites.” His brothers agreed.

So when the traders came by, they lifted him out of the well and sold him for twenty pieces of silver.

At this time Ruben was not there. When he returned to the well and saw that Joseph was not there. He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy is gone, where shall I go?”

Then they killed a goat and dipped Joseph robe in the blood. They took the robe back to their father and said, “This we have found; please identify whether it is your son’s robe or not.”

He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! Some wild animal has killed him.” He cried for many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but nobody could comfort him.

At that time, the traders sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.