This was my lot ¹  for twenty years in your house: I worked like a slave ²  for you – fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks, but you changed my wages ten times!

“This pile of stones and the pillar are reminders that I will not pass beyond this pile to come to harm you and that you will not pass beyond this pile and this pillar to come to harm me. ¹ 

You must also say, ‘In fact your servant Jacob is behind us.’” ¹  Jacob thought, ²  “I will first appease him ³  by sending a gift ahead of me. ⁴  After that I will meet him. ⁵  Perhaps he will accept me.” ⁶ 

All his sons and daughters stood by ¹  him to console him, but he refused to be consoled. “No,” he said, “I will go to the grave mourning my son.” ²  So Joseph’s ³  father wept for him.

There is no one greater in this household than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you because you are his wife. So how could I do ¹  such a great evil and sin against God?”

When all the land of Egypt experienced the famine, the people cried out to Pharaoh for food. Pharaoh said to all the people of Egypt, ¹  “Go to Joseph and do whatever he tells you.”

When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger ¹  to them and spoke to them harshly. He asked, “Where do you come from?” They answered, ²  “From the land of Canaan, to buy grain for food.” ³ 

Then Joseph gave orders to fill ¹  their bags with grain, to return each man’s money to his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. His orders were carried out. ² 

Look, the money that we found in the mouths of our sacks we brought back to you from the land of Canaan. Why then would we steal silver or gold from your master’s house?

Joseph was no longer able to control himself before all his attendants, ¹  so he cried out, “Make everyone go out from my presence!” No one remained ²  with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers.

You are a lion’s cub, Judah, from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches and lies down like a lion; like a lioness – who will rouse him?

His sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, near Mamre. This is the field Abraham purchased as a burial plot from Ephron the Hittite.

The Lord God said to the serpent, ¹  “Because you have done this, cursed ²  are you above all the wild beasts and all the living creatures of the field! On your belly you will crawl ³  and dust you will eat ⁴  all the days of your life.

“Out of our way!” ¹  they cried, and “This man came to live here as a foreigner, ²  and now he dares to judge us! ³  We’ll do more harm ⁴  to you than to them!” They kept ⁵  pressing in on Lot until they were close enough ⁶  to break down the door.

Then Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law who were going to marry his daughters. ¹  He said, “Quick, get out of this place because the Lord is about to destroy ²  the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was ridiculing them. ³ 

“The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and the land of my relatives, ¹  promised me with a solemn oath, ²  ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’ He will send his angel ³  before you so that you may find ⁴  a wife for my son from there.

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought ruin ¹  on me by making me a foul odor ²  among the inhabitants of the land – among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I ³  am few in number; they will join forces against me and attack me, and both I and my family will be destroyed!”

Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s house until Shelah my son grows up.” For he thought, ¹  “I don’t want him to die like his brothers.” ²  So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.

One of you must go and get ¹  your brother, while ²  the rest of you remain in prison. ³  In this way your words may be tested to see if ⁴  you are telling the truth. ⁵  If not, then, as surely as Pharaoh lives, you are spies!”

The land of Egypt is before you; settle your father and your brothers in the best region of the land. They may live in the land of Goshen. If you know of any highly capable men ¹  among them, put them in charge ²  of my livestock.”