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Jacob Meets Esau
Jacob looked up and there was Esau, coming with his four hundred men; so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel and the two female servants.
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He put the female servants and their children in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph in the rear.
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Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children. “Who are these with you?” he asked. Jacob answered, “They are the children God has graciously given your servant.”
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Then the female servants and their children approached and bowed down.
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So let my lord go on ahead of his servant, while I move along slowly at the pace of the flocks and herds before me and the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.”
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The sons of Rachel’s servant Bilhah: Dan and Naphtali.
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The sons of Leah’s servant Zilpah: Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob, who were born to him in Paddan Aram.
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One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside.
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she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed.
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Pharaoh was once angry with his servants, and he imprisoned me and the chief baker in the house of the captain of the guard.
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Now a young Hebrew was there with us, a servant of the captain of the guard. We told him our dreams, and he interpreted them for us, giving each man the interpretation of his dream.
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“No, my lord,” they answered. “Your servants have come to buy food.
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We are all the sons of one man. Your servants are honest men, not spies.”
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But they replied, “Your servants were twelve brothers, the sons of one man, who lives in the land of Canaan. The youngest is now with our father, and one is no more.”
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They replied, “Your servant our father is still alive and well.” And they bowed down, prostrating themselves before him.
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But they said to him, “Why does my lord say such things? Far be it from your servants to do anything like that!
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If any of your servants is found to have it, he will die; and the rest of us will become my lord’s slaves.”
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“What can we say to my lord?” Judah replied. “What can we say? How can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered your servants’ guilt. We are now my lord’s slaves—we ourselves and the one who was found to have the cup.”
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Then Judah went up to him and said: “Pardon your servant, my lord, let me speak a word to my lord. Do not be angry with your servant, though you are equal to Pharaoh himself.
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My lord asked his servants, ‘Do you have a father or a brother?’
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“Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me so I can see him for myself.’
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But you told your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will not see my face again.’
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When we went back to your servant my father, we told him what my lord had said.
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“Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons.
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“So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father, and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy’s life,
