Genesis 37–50

JOSEPH’S DREAMS

37Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.^{c 2}These are the family records of Jacob.

At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended sheep with his brothers. The young man was working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives,^d and he brought a bad report about them to their father.^e

³Now Israel loved Joseph more than his other sons because Joseph was a son born to him in his old age,^f and he made a long-sleeved robe for him. ⁴When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not bring themselves to speak peaceably to him.

⁵Then Joseph had a dream. When he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. ⁶He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: ⁷There we were, binding sheaves of grain in the field. Suddenly my sheaf stood up, and your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.”^a

⁸“Are you really going to reign over us?” his brothers asked him. “Are you really going to rule us?” So they hated him even more because of his dream and what he had said.

⁹Then he had another dream and told it to his brothers. “Look,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun, moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

¹⁰He told his father and brothers, and his father rebuked him. “What kind of dream is this that you have had?” he said. “Am I and your mother and your brothers really going to come and bow down to the ground before you?” ¹¹His brothers were jealous of him,^b but his father kept the matter in mind.^c

JOSEPH SOLD INTO SLAVERY

¹²His brothers had gone to pasture their father’s flocks at Shechem. ¹³Israel said to Joseph, “Your brothers, you know, are pasturing the flocks at Shechem. Get ready. I’m sending you to them.”

“I’m ready,” Joseph replied.

¹⁴Then Israel said to him, “Go and see how your brothers and the flocks are doing, and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the Hebron^d Valley, and he went to Shechem.

¹⁵A man found him there, wandering in the field, and asked him, “What are you looking for?”

¹⁶“I’m looking for my brothers,” Joseph said. “Can you tell me where they are pasturing their flocks?”

¹⁷“They’ve moved on from here,” the man said. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’ ”^e So Joseph set out after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

¹⁸They saw him in the distance, and before he had reached them, they plotted to kill him.^{f 19}They said to one another, “Oh, look, here comes that dream expert!^{A 20}So now, come on, let’s kill him and throw him into one of the pits.^B We can say that a vicious animal ate him. Then we’ll see what becomes of his dreams!”

²¹When Reuben heard this, he tried to save him from them.^C He said, “Let’s not take his life.”^{g 22}Reuben also said to them, “Don’t shed blood. Throw him into this pit in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him”—intending to rescue him from them and return him to his father.

²³When Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped off Joseph’s robe, the long-sleeved robe that he had on. ²⁴Then they took him and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty, without water.^*

²⁵They sat down to eat a meal,^h and when they looked up, there was a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead.ⁱ Their camels were carrying aromatic gum, balsam, and resin, going down to Egypt.^j

²⁶Judah said to his brothers, “What do we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? ²⁷Come on, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay a hand on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh,” and his brothers agreed. ²⁸When Midianite^k traders passed by, his brothers pulled Joseph out of the pit and sold him for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took Joseph to Egypt.^l

²⁹When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes.^{m 30}He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy is gone! What am I going to do?”^{A 31}So they took Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a male goat, and dipped the robe in its blood. ³²They sent the long-sleeved robe to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it. Is it your son’s robe or not?”

³³His father recognized it. “It is my son’s robe,” he said. “A vicious animal has devoured him. Joseph has been torn to pieces!”^{n 34}Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth around his waist, and mourned for his son many days. ³⁵All his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said. “I will go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” And his father wept for him.

³⁶Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and the captain of the guards.

JUDAH AND TAMAR

38At that time Judah left his brothers and settled near an Adullamite^o named Hirah. ²There Judah saw the daughter of a Canaanite named Shua; he took her as a wife and slept with her. ³She conceived and gave birth to a son, and he named him Er.^{p 4}She conceived again, gave birth to a son, and named him Onan. ⁵She gave birth to another son and named him Shelah. It was at Chezib that^BC she gave birth to him.

⁶Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. ⁷Now Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the Lord’s sight, and the Lord put him to death.^{a 8}Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife. Perform your duty as her brother-in-law^b and produce offspring for your brother.”^{c 9}But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he released his semen on the ground so that he would not produce offspring for his brother. ¹⁰What he did was evil in the Lord’s sight, so he put him to death also.

¹¹Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up.”^d For he thought, “He might die too, like his brothers.” So Tamar went to live in her father’s house.

¹²After a long time^D Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had finished mourning, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went up to Timnah^e to his sheepshearers. ¹³Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.” ¹⁴So she took off her widow’s clothes, veiled her face,^f covered herself, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had grown up, she had not been given to him as a wife. ¹⁵When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face.

¹⁶He went over to her and said, “Come, let me sleep with you,” for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.^g

She said, “What will you give me for sleeping with me?”

¹⁷“I will send you a young goat from my flock,” he replied.

But she said, “Only if you leave something with me until you send it.”

¹⁸“What should I give you?” he asked.

She answered, “Your signet ring, your cord, and the staff in your hand.” So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him. ¹⁹She got up and left, then removed her veil and put her widow’s clothes back on.

²⁰When Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get back the items he had left with the woman, he could not find her. ²¹He asked the men of the place, “Where is the cult prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?”

“There has been no cult prostitute here,” they answered.

²²So the Adullamite returned to Judah, saying, “I couldn’t find her, and besides, the men of the place said, ‘There has been no cult prostitute here.’ ”

²³Judah replied, “Let her keep the items for herself; otherwise we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send this young goat, but you couldn’t find her.”

²⁴About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law, Tamar, has been acting like a prostitute, and now she is pregnant.”

“Bring her out,” Judah said, “and let her be burned to death!”^h

²⁵As she was being brought out, she sent her father-in-law this message: “I am pregnant by the man to whom these items belong.” And she added, “Examine them. Whose signet ring, cord, and staff are these?”

²⁶Judah recognized them and said, “She is more in the right^A than I,ⁱ since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not know her intimately again.

²⁷When the time came for her to give birth, there were twins in her womb. ²⁸As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand, and the midwife took it and tied a scarlet thread around it, announcing, “This one came out first.” ²⁹But then he pulled his hand back, out came his brother, and she said, “What a breakout you have made for yourself!” So he was named Perez.^{Bj 30}Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread tied to his hand, came out, and was named Zerah.^C

JOSEPH IN POTIPHAR’S HOUSE

39Now Joseph had been taken to Egypt. An Egyptian named Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and the captain of the guards, bought him from the Ishmaelites^k who had brought him there. ²The Lord was with Joseph,^l and he became a successful man, serving^D in the household of his Egyptian master. ³When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord made everything he did successful,^{m 4}Joseph found favorⁿ with his master and became his personal attendant. Potiphar also put him in charge of his household and placed all that he owned under his authority.^{E 5}From the time that he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house because of Joseph.^a The Lord’s blessing was on all that he owned, in his house and in his fields. ⁶He left all that he owned under Joseph’s authority;^F he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.

Now Joseph was well-built and handsome.^{b 7}After some time his master’s wife looked longingly at Joseph and said, “Sleep with me.”

⁸But he refused. “Look,” he said to his master’s wife, “with me here my master does not concern himself with anything in his house, and he has put all that he owns under my authority.^{A 9}No one in this house is greater than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you,…