Look, this town over here is close enough to escape to, and it’s just a little one. Let me go there. It’s just a little place, isn’t it? Then I’ll survive.”

I myself pledge security for him; you may hold me liable. If I do not bring him back to you and place him here before you, I will bear the blame before you all my life.

“Out of our way!” they cried, and “This man came to live here as a foreigner, and now he dares to judge us! We’ll do more harm to you than to them!” They kept pressing in on Lot until they were close enough to break down the door.

Reuben continued, “Don’t shed blood! Throw him into this cistern that is here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” (Reuben said this so he could rescue Joseph from them and take him back to his father.)

He said, “Here, my lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house. Stay the night and wash your feet. Then you can be on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they replied, “we’ll spend the night in the town square.”

Israel said to Joseph, “Your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I will send you to them.” “I’m ready,” Joseph replied.

Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath. He said, “God will surely come to you. Then you must carry my bones up from this place.”

Joseph said to his father, “They are the sons God has given me in this place.” His father said, “Bring them to me so I may bless them.”

The man said, “They left this area, for I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

“Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘This is how I will find out if you are honest men. Leave one of your brothers with me, and take grain for your hungry households and go.

“I am a temporary settler among you. Grant me ownership of a burial site among you so that I may bury my dead.”

“So now, please let your servant remain as my lord’s slave instead of the boy. As for the boy, let him go back with his brothers.

Then they asked him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” He replied, “There, in the tent.”

but you must go to the family of my father and to my relatives to find a wife for my son.’

Laban replied, “I’d rather give her to you than to another man. Stay with me.”

she called for her household servants and said to them, “See, my husband brought in a Hebrew man to us to humiliate us. He tried to have sex with me, but I screamed loudly.

“Now, as for your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, they will be mine. Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine just as Reuben and Simeon are.

They said, “My lord, we did indeed come down the first time to buy food.

Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Your father and your brothers have come to you.

If we do so, won’t their livestock, their property, and all their animals become ours? So let’s consent to their demand, so they will live among us.”