The thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven good heads of grain. So I told all this ¹  to the diviner-priests, but no one could tell me its meaning.” ² 

But seven years of famine will occur ¹  after them, and all the abundance will be forgotten in the land of Egypt. The famine will devastate ²  the land.

Pharaoh should do ¹  this – he should appoint ²  officials ³  throughout the land to collect one-fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt ⁴  during the seven years of abundance.

This food should be held in storage for the land in preparation for the seven years of famine that will occur throughout the land of Egypt. In this way the land will survive the famine.” ¹ 

Then the seven years of famine began, ¹  just as Joseph had predicted. There was famine in all the other lands, but throughout the land of Egypt there was food.

These were the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to Rachel his daughter. She bore these to Jacob, seven in all.

When they came to the threshing floor of Atad ¹  on the other side of the Jordan, they mourned there with very great and bitter sorrow. ²  There Joseph observed a seven day period of mourning for his father.

For in seven days ¹  I will cause it to rain ²  on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the ground every living thing that I have made.”

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month – on that day all the fountains of the great deep ¹  burst open and the floodgates of the heavens ²  were opened.

This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, his seventeen-year-old son, ¹  was taking care of ²  the flocks with his brothers. Now he was a youngster ³  working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. ⁴  Joseph brought back a bad report about them ⁵  to their father.

Then ¹  seven other cows came up after them; they were scrawny, very bad-looking, and lean. I had never seen such bad-looking cows ²  as these in all the land of Egypt!

Joseph ¹  collected all the excess food ²  in the land of Egypt during the seven years and stored it in the cities. ³  In every city he put the food gathered from the fields around it.