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Genesis 41

Joseph Interprets the King's Dreams

    ⁸The next morning the king was upset. So he called in his magicians and wise men and told them what he had dreamed. None of them could tell him what the dreams meant.

    ⁹The king's personal servant said:

   Now I remember what I was supposed to do. ¹⁰When you were angry with me and your chief cook, you threw us both in jail in the house of the captain of the guard. ¹¹One night we both had dreams, and each dream had a different meaning. ¹²A young Hebrew, who was a servant of the captain of the guard, was there with us at the time. When we told him our dreams, he explained what each of them meant, ¹³and everything happened just as he said it would. I got my job back, and the cook was put to death.

    ¹⁴The king sent for Joseph, who was quickly brought out of jail. He shaved, changed his clothes, and went to the king.

    ¹⁵The king said to him, "I had a dream, yet no one can explain what it means. I am told that you can interpret dreams."

    ¹⁶"Your Majesty," Joseph answered, "I can't do it myself, but God can give a good meaning to your dreams."

    ¹⁷The king told Joseph:

   I dreamed I was standing on the bank of the Nile River. ¹⁸I saw seven fat, healthy cows come up out of the river, and they began feeding on the grass. ¹⁹Next, seven skinny, bony cows came up out of the river. I have never seen such terrible looking cows anywhere in Egypt. ²⁰The skinny cows ate the fat ones. ²¹But you couldn't tell it, because these skinny cows were just as skinny as they were before. Right away, I woke up.

    ²²I also dreamed that I saw seven heads of grain growing on one stalk. The heads were full and ripe. ²³Then seven other heads of grain came up. They were thin and scorched by a wind from the desert. ²⁴These heads of grain swallowed the full ones. I told my dreams to the magicians, but none of them could tell me the meaning of the dreams.

    ²⁵Joseph replied:

   Your Majesty, both of your dreams mean the same thing, and in them God has shown what he is going to do. ²⁶The seven good cows stand for seven years, and so do the seven good heads of grain. ²⁷The seven skinny, ugly cows that came up later also stand for seven years, as do the seven bad heads of grain that were scorched by the east wind. The dreams mean there will be seven years when there won't be enough grain.

    ²⁸It is just as I said--God has shown what he intends to do. ²⁹For seven years Egypt will have more than enough grain, ³⁰but that will be followed by seven years when there won't be enough. The good years of plenty will be forgotten, and everywhere in Egypt people will be starving. ³¹The famine will be so bad that no one will remember that once there had been plenty. ³²God has given you two dreams to let you know that he has definitely decided to do this and that he will do it soon.

    ³³Your Majesty, you should find someone who is wise and will know what to do, so that you can put him in charge of all Egypt. ³⁴Then appoint some other officials to collect one-fifth of every crop harvested in Egypt during the seven years when there is plenty. ³⁵Give them the power to collect the grain during those good years and to store it in your cities. ³⁶It can be stored until it is needed during the seven years when there won't be enough grain in Egypt. This will keep the country from being destroyed because of the lack of food.

Joseph Is Made Governor over Egypt

    ⁴²Then the king took off his royal ring and put it on Joseph's finger. He gave him fine clothes to wear and placed a gold chain around his neck. ⁴³He also let him ride in the chariot next to his own, and people shouted, "Make way for Joseph!" So Joseph was governor of Egypt.

    ⁴⁴The king told Joseph, "Although I'm king, no one in Egypt is to do anything without your permission." ⁴⁵He gave Joseph the Egyptian name Zaphenath Paneah. And he let him marry Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, a priest in the city of Heliopolis. ^[c] Joseph traveled all over Egypt. ⁴⁶Joseph was thirty when the king made him governor, and he went everywhere for the king. ⁴⁷For seven years there were big harvests of grain. ⁴⁸Joseph collected and stored up the extra grain in the cities of Egypt near the fields where it was harvested. ⁴⁹In fact, there was so much grain that they stopped keeping record, because it was like counting the grains of sand along the beach.

    ⁵⁰Joseph and his wife had two sons before the famine began. ⁵¹Their first son was named Manasseh, which means, "God has let me forget all my troubles and my family back home." ⁵²His second son was named Ephraim, which means "God has made me a success ^[d] in the land where I suffered." ^{[e] 53}Egypt's seven years of plenty came to an end, ⁵⁴and the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had said. There was not enough food in other countries, but all over Egypt there was plenty. ⁵⁵When the famine finally struck Egypt, the people asked the king for food, but he said, "Go to Joseph and do what he tells you to do."

    ⁵⁶The famine became bad everywhere in Egypt, so Joseph opened the storehouses and sold the grain to the Egyptians. ⁵⁷People from all over the world came to Egypt, because the famine was severe in their countries.

Genesis 42

Joseph's Brothers Go to Egypt To Buy Grain

    ³Ten of Joseph's brothers went to Egypt to buy grain. ⁴But Jacob did not send Joseph's younger brother Benjamin with them; he was afraid that something might happen to him. ⁵So Jacob's sons joined others from Canaan who were going to Egypt because of the terrible famine.

    ⁶Since Joseph was governor of Egypt and in charge of selling grain, his brothers came to him and bowed with their faces to the ground. ^7-8They did not recognize Joseph, but right away he knew who they were, though he pretended not to know. Instead, he spoke harshly and asked, "Where do you come from?"

   "From the land of Canaan," they answered. "We've come here to buy grain."

    ⁹Joseph remembered what he had dreamed about them and said, "You're spies! You've come here to find out where our country is weak."

    ¹⁰"No sir," they replied. "We're your servants, and we have only come to buy grain. ¹¹We're honest men, and we come from the same family--we're not spies."

    ¹²"That isn't so!" Joseph insisted. "You've come here to find out where our country is weak."

    ¹³But they explained, "Sir, we come from a family of twelve brothers. The youngest is still with our father in Canaan, and one of our brothers is dead."

    ¹⁴Joseph replied:

   It's just like I said. You're spies, ¹⁵and I'm going to find out who you really are. I swear by the life of the king that you won't leave this place until your youngest brother comes here. ¹⁶Choose one of you to go after your brother, while the rest of you stay here in jail. That will show whether you are telling the truth. But if you are lying, I swear by the life of the king that you are spies!

    ¹⁷Joseph kept them all under guard for three days, ¹⁸before saying to them:

   Since I respect God, I'll give you a chance to save your lives. ¹⁹If you are honest men, one of you must stay here in jail, and the rest of you can take the grain back to your starving families. ²⁰But you must bring your youngest brother to me. Then I'll know that you are telling the truth, and you won't be put to death.

   Joseph's brothers agreed ²¹and said to one another, "We're being punished because of Joseph. We saw the trouble he was in, but we refused to help him when he begged us. That's why these terrible things are happening."

    ²²Reuben spoke up, "Didn't I tell you not to harm the boy? But you wouldn't listen, and now we have to pay the price for killing him."

    ²³They did not know that Joseph could understand them, since he was speaking through an interpreter. ²⁴Joseph turned away from them and cried, but soon he turned back and spoke to them again. Then he had Simeon tied up and taken away while they watched.

Joseph's Brothers Return to Canaan

   They were trembling with fear as they stared at one another and asked themselves, "What has God done to us?"

    ²⁹When they returned to the land of Canaan, they told their father Jacob everything that had happened to them:

    ³⁰The governor of Egypt was rude and treated us like spies. ³¹But we told him, "We're honest men, not spies. ³²We come from a family of twelve brothers. The youngest is still with our father in Canaan, and the other is dead."

    ³³Then the governor of Egypt told us, "I'll find out if you really are honest. Leave one of your brothers here with me, while you take the grain to your starving families. ³⁴But bring your youngest brother to me, so I can be certain that you are honest men and not spies. After that, I'll let your other brother go free, and you can stay here and trade."

    ³⁵When the brothers started emptying their sacks of grain, they found their moneybags in them. They were frightened, and so was their father Jacob, ³⁶who said, "You have already taken my sons Joseph and Simeon from me. And now you want to take away Benjamin! Everything is against me."

    ³⁷Reuben spoke up, "Father, if I don't bring Benjamin back, you can kill both of my sons. Trust me with him, and I will bring him back."

    ³⁸But Jacob said, "I won't let my son Benjamin go down to Egypt with the rest of you. His brother is already dead, and he is the only son I have left. ^[g] I am an old man, and if anything happens to him on the way, I'll die from sorrow, and all of you will be to blame."

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Matthew 12

A Question about the Sabbath

(Mark 2.23-28; Luke 6.1-5)

   You surely must have read what David did when he and his followers were hungry. ⁴He went into the house of God, and then they ate the sacred loaves of bread that only priests are supposed to eat. ⁵Haven't you read in the Law of Moses that the priests are allowed to work in the temple on the Sabbath? But no one says that they are guilty of breaking the law of the Sabbath. ⁶I tell you that there is something here greater than the temple. ⁷Don't you know what the Scriptures mean when they say, "Instead of offering sacrifices to me, I want you to be merciful to others?" If you knew what this means, you would not condemn these innocent disciples of mine. ⁸So the Son of Man is Lord over the Sabbath.

A Man with a Crippled Hand

(Mark 3.1-6; Luke 6.6-11)

    ¹¹Jesus answered, "If you had a sheep that fell into a ditch on the Sabbath, wouldn't you lift it out? ¹²People are worth much more than sheep, and so it is right to do good on the Sabbath." ¹³Then Jesus told the man, "Hold out your hand." The man did, and it became as healthy as the other one.

    ¹⁴The Pharisees left and started making plans to kill Jesus.

God's Chosen Servant

    ¹⁸"Here is my chosen servant!

   I love him,

   and he pleases me.

   I will give him my Spirit,

   and he will bring justice

   to the nations.

    ¹⁹He won't shout or yell

   or call out in the streets.

    ²⁰He won't break off a bent reed

   or put out a dying flame,

   but he will make sure

   that justice is done.

    ²¹All nations will place

   their hope in him."

Jesus and the Ruler of the Demons

(Mark 3.20-30; Luke 11.14-23; 12.10)