2 This is the account of Jacob's family line. Joseph, a young
man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers,
the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives,
and he brought their father a bad report about them.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons,
because he had been born to him in his old age; and he
made a richly ornamented robe for him.
4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more
than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a
kind word to him.
5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his
brothers, they
hated him all the more.
6 He said to them, "Listen to this dream I had:
7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when
suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves
gathered around mine and bowed down to it."
8 His brothers said to him, "Do you intend to reign over us?
Will you actually rule us?" And they hated him all the more
because of his dream and what he had said.
9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers.
"Listen," he said, "I had another dream, and this time the
sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me."
10 When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father
rebuked him and said, "What is this dream you had? Will
your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow
down to the ground before you?"
11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the
matter in mind.
12 Now his brothers had gone to graze their father's flocks near
Shechem,
13 and Israel said to Joseph, "As you know, your
brothers are
grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send
you to them." "Very well," he replied.
14 So he said to him, "Go and see if all is well with your
brothers
and with the flocks, and bring word back to me." Then he
sent him off from the Valley of Hebron.
When Joseph arrived at Shechem,
15 a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him,
"What are you looking for?"
16 He replied, "I'm looking for my brothers. Can you tell me
where they are grazing their flocks?"
17 "They have moved on from here," the man answered. "I
heard them say, 'Let's go to Dothan.'"
So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan.
18 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached
them, they plotted to kill him.
19 "Here comes that dreamer!" they said to each other.
20 "Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these
cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then
we'll see what comes of his
dreams."
21 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their
hands. "Let's not take his life," he said.
22 "Don't shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the
wilderness, but don't lay a hand on him." Reuben said this to
rescue him from them and take
him back to his father.
23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of
his robe—the richly ornamented robe he was
wearing—
24 and they took him and threw him into the cistern.
The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.
25 As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up
and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from
Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm
and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them
down to Egypt.
26 Judah said to his brothers, "What will we gain if we
kill our brother and cover up his blood?
27 Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay
our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our
own flesh and blood." His brothers agreed.
28 So when the Midianite merchants came by, his
brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold
him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites,
who took him to Egypt.
29 When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that
Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes.
30 He went back to his brothers and said, "The boy
isn't there! Where can I turn now?"
31 Then they got Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat and
dipped the robe in the blood.
32 They took the ornamented robe back to their father
and said, "We found this. Examine it to see whether
it is your son's robe."
33 He recognized it and said, "It is my son's robe! Some
ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely
been torn to pieces."
34 Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and
mourned for his son many days.
35 All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but
he refused to be comforted. "No," he said, "in
mourning will I go down to the grave to my son." So
his father wept for him.
36 Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to
Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of
the guard.
Genesis 37:2-36
Joseph Sold by His Brothers
