Genesis 37-39

GOD’S WORD Translation

Joseph’s Brothers Sell Him into Slavery

37 Jacob continued to live in the land of Canaan, where his father had lived.

² This is the account of Jacob and his descendants.

Joseph was a seventeen-year-old young man. He took care of the flocks with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. Joseph told his father about the bad things his brothers were doing.

³ Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because Joseph had been born in Israel’s old age. So he made Joseph a special robe with long sleeves. ⁴ Joseph’s brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them. They hated Joseph and couldn’t speak to him on friendly terms.

⁵ Joseph had a dream and when he told his brothers, they hated him even more. ⁶ He said to them, “Please listen to the dream I had. ⁷ We were tying grain into bundles out in the field, and suddenly mine stood up. It remained standing while your bundles gathered around my bundle and bowed down to it.”

⁸ Then his brothers asked him, “Are you going to be our king or rule us?” They hated him even more for his dreams and his words.

⁹ Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream: I saw the sun, the moon, and 11 stars bowing down to me.”

¹⁰ When he told his father and his brothers, his father criticized him by asking, “What’s this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers come and bow down in front of you?” ¹¹ So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept thinking about these things.

¹² His brothers had gone to take care of their father’s flocks at Shechem. ¹³ Israel then said to Joseph, “Your brothers are taking care of the flocks at Shechem. I’m going to send you to them.”

Joseph responded, “I’ll go.”

¹⁴ So Israel said, “See how your brothers and the flocks are doing, and bring some news back to me.” Then he sent Joseph away from the Hebron Valley.

When Joseph came to Shechem, ¹⁵ a man found him wandering around in the open country. “What are you looking for?” the man asked.

¹⁶ Joseph replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Please tell me where they’re taking care of their flocks.”

¹⁷ The man said, “They moved on from here. I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’ ” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.

¹⁸ They saw him from a distance. Before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. ¹⁹ They said to each other, “Look, here comes that master dreamer! ²⁰ Let’s kill him, throw him into one of the cisterns, and say that a wild animal has eaten him. Then we’ll see what happens to his dreams.”

²¹ When Reuben heard this, he tried to save Joseph from their plot. “Let’s not kill him,” he said. ²² “Let’s not have any bloodshed. Put him into that cistern that’s out in the desert, but don’t hurt him.” Reuben wanted to rescue Joseph from them and bring him back to his father.

²³ So when Joseph reached his brothers, they stripped him of his special robe with long sleeves. ²⁴ Then they took him and put him into an empty cistern. It had no water in it.

²⁵ As they sat down to eat, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were carrying the materials for cosmetics, medicine, and embalming. They were on their way to take them to Egypt.

²⁶ Judah asked his brothers, “What will we gain by killing our brother and covering up his death? ²⁷ Let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites. Let’s not hurt him, because he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed.

²⁸ As the Midianite merchants were passing by, the brothers pulled Joseph out of the cistern. They sold him to the Ishmaelites for eight ounces of silver. The Ishmaelites took him to Egypt.

²⁹ When Reuben came back to the cistern and saw that Joseph was no longer there, he tore his clothes in grief. ³⁰ He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there! What am I going to do?”

³¹ So they took Joseph’s robe, killed a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. ³² Then they brought the special robe with long sleeves to their father and said, “We found this. You better examine it to see whether it’s your son’s robe or not.”

³³ He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! A wild animal has eaten him! Joseph must have been torn to pieces!” ³⁴ Then, to show his grief, Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth around his waist, and mourned for his son a long time. ³⁵ All his other sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, “No, I will mourn for my son until I die.” This is how Joseph’s father cried over him.

³⁶ Meanwhile, in Egypt the Midianites sold Joseph to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials and captain of the guard.

Judah’s Sin with Tamar

38 About that time Judah left his brothers and went to stay with a man from Adullam whose name was Hirah. ² There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man whose name was Shua. He married her and slept with her. ³ She became pregnant and gave birth to a son named ^[a] Er. ⁴ She became pregnant again and gave birth to another son, whom she named Onan. ⁵ Then she became pregnant again and gave birth to another son, whom she named Shelah. He was born at Kezib.

⁶ Judah chose a wife for his firstborn son Er. Her name was Tamar. ⁷ Er angered the Lord. So the Lord took away his life. ⁸ Then Judah said to Onan, “Go sleep with your brother’s widow. Do your duty for her as a brother-in-law, and produce a descendant for your brother.” ⁹ But Onan knew that the descendant wouldn’t belong to him, so whenever he slept with his brother’s widow, he wasted his semen on the ground to avoid giving his brother a descendant. ¹⁰ What Onan did angered the Lord so much that the Lord took away Onan’s life too.

¹¹ Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Return to your father’s home. Live as a widow until my son Shelah grows up.” He thought that this son, too, might die like his brothers. So Tamar went to live in her father’s home.

¹² After a long time Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had finished mourning, he and his friend Hirah from Adullam went to Timnah where the men were shearing Judah’s sheep. ¹³ As soon as Tamar was told that her father-in-law was on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep, ¹⁴ she took off her widow’s clothes, covered her face with a veil, and disguised herself. Then she sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. (She did this because she realized that Shelah was grown up now, and she hadn’t been given to him in marriage.)

¹⁵ When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute because she had covered her face. ¹⁶ Since he didn’t know she was his daughter-in-law, he approached her by the roadside and said, “Come on, let’s sleep together!”

She asked, “What will you pay to sleep with me?”

¹⁷ “I’ll send you a young goat from the flock,” he answered.

She said, “First give me something as a deposit until you send it.”

¹⁸ “What should I give you as a deposit?” he asked.

“Your signet ring, its cord, and the shepherd’s staff that’s in your hand,” she answered.

So he gave them to her. Then he slept with her, and she became pregnant. ¹⁹ After she got up and left, she took off her veil and put her widow’s clothes back on.

²⁰ Judah sent his friend Hirah to deliver the young goat so that he could get back his deposit from the woman, but his friend couldn’t find her. ²¹ He asked the men of that area, “Where’s that prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?”

“There’s no prostitute here,” they answered.

²² So he went back to Judah and said, “I couldn’t find her. Even the men of that area said, ‘There’s no prostitute here.’ ”

²³ Then Judah said, “Let her keep what I gave her, or we’ll become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you couldn’t find her.”

²⁴ About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has been acting like a prostitute. What’s more, because of it she’s pregnant.”

Judah ordered, “Bring her out to be burned.”

²⁵ As she was brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law, “I’m pregnant by the man who owns these things. See if you recognize whose signet ring, cord, and shepherd’s staff these are.”

²⁶ Judah recognized them and said, “She’s not guilty. I am! She did this because I haven’t given her my son Shelah.” Judah never made love to her again.

²⁷ The time came for Tamar to give birth, and she had twin boys. ²⁸ When she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand. The midwife took a piece of red yarn, tied it on his wrist, and said, “This one came out first.” ²⁹ As he pulled back his hand, his brother was born. So she said, “Is this how you burst into the world!” He was named Perez [Bursting Into]. ³⁰ After that his brother was born with the red yarn on his hand. He was named Zerah [Sunrise].

Joseph in Potiphar’s House

39 Joseph had been taken to Egypt. Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s Egyptian officials and captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.

² The Lord was with Joseph, so he became a successful man. He worked in the house of his Egyptian master. ³ Joseph’s master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord made everything he did successful. ⁴ Potiphar liked Joseph so much that he made him his trusted servant. He put him in charge of his household and everything he owned. ⁵ From that time on the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s household because of Joseph. Therefore, the Lord’s blessing was on everything Potiphar owned in his house and in his fields. ⁶ So he left all that he owned in Joseph’s care. He wasn’t concerned about anything except the food he ate.

Joseph was well-built and handsome. ⁷ After a while his master’s wife began to desire Joseph, so she said, “Come to bed with me.”

⁸ But Joseph refused and said to her, “My master doesn’t concern himself with anything in the house. He trusts me with everything he owns. ⁹ No one in this house is greater than I. He’s kept nothing back from me except you, because you’re his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” ¹⁰ Although she kept asking Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or be with her.

¹¹ One day he went into the house to do his work, and none of the household servants were there. ¹² She grabbed him by his clothes and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he ran outside and left his clothes in her hand.

¹³ When she realized that he had gone but had left his clothes behind, ¹⁴ she called her household servants and said to them, “Look! My husband brought this Hebrew here to fool around with us. He came in and tried to go to bed with me, but I screamed as loud as I could. ¹⁵ As soon as he heard me scream, he ran outside and left his clothes with me.”

¹⁶ She kept Joseph’s clothes with her until his master came home. ¹⁷ Then she told him the same story: “The Hebrew slave you brought here came in and tried to fool around with me. ¹⁸ But when I screamed, he ran outside and left his clothes with me.”

¹⁹ When Potiphar heard his wife’s story, especially when she said, “This is what your slave did to me,” he became very angry. ²⁰ So Joseph’s master arrested him and put him in the same prison where the king’s prisoners were kept.

While Joseph was in prison, ²¹ the Lord was with him. The Lord reached out to him with his unchanging love and gave him protection. The Lord also put Joseph on good terms with the warden. ²² So the warden placed Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in that prison. Joseph became responsible for everything that they were doing. ²³ The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care because the Lord was with Joseph and made whatever he did successful.