When Rebekah heard what her older son Esau had said, ¹  she quickly summoned ²  her younger son Jacob and told him, “Look, your brother Esau is planning to get revenge by killing you. ³ 

And the Lord said, “If as one people all sharing a common language ¹  they have begun to do this, then ²  nothing they plan to do will be beyond them. ³ 

This advice made sense to Pharaoh and all his officials. ¹ 

Then the Lord said, “Should I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? ¹ 

Now Joseph’s brothers ¹  saw him from a distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

When I came to the spring today, I prayed, ‘O Lord, God of my master Abraham, if you have decided to make my journey successful, ¹  may events unfold as follows: ² 

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 

O my soul, do not come into their council, do not be united to their assembly, my heart, ¹  for in their anger they have killed men, and for pleasure they have hamstrung oxen.

Reuben continued, ¹  “Don’t shed blood! Throw him into this cistern that is here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” ²  (Reuben said this ³  so he could rescue Joseph ⁴  from them ⁵  and take him back to his father.)

But the men were afraid when they were brought to Joseph’s house. They said, “We are being brought in because of ¹  the money that was returned in our sacks last time. ²  He wants to capture us, ³  make us slaves, and take ⁴  our donkeys!”