The Daily Audio Bible

50 As his father passed on, Joseph threw himself onto his father’s face, crying and kissing him. ² Then Joseph told the physicians in his service to embalm his father and prepare him for the journey. So the physicians embalmed Israel. ³ It took 40 days to embalm him because that’s how long it takes to embalm a body properly. And the Egyptians paid their respects by mourning and weeping for him for 70 days.

⁴ When the time of mourning had passed, Joseph addressed Pharaoh’s household.

⁷ So Joseph went up to Canaan to bury his father. And all of Pharaoh’s servants went with him in a long procession that included the elders of Pharaoh’s household and the land of Egypt. ⁸ Joseph’s own household, his brothers, and his father’s household joined in the solemn march. Only their children, flocks, and herds were left in the land of Goshen. ⁹ Both chariots and charioteers accompanied him as well. It was a grand procession. ¹⁰ When they came to the threshing floor of Atad near Canaan but still beyond the Jordan River, the great company of mourners paused to observe seven days of mourning for Joseph’s father. The weeping and lamentation grew so loud that ¹¹ the people who lived there, the Canaanites, could not help but notice the profound grief expressed on the threshing floor of Atad.

This is why this place of mourning that lies beyond the Jordan was renamed Abel-mizraim.

¹² So Jacob’s sons carried out his last instructions as he had directed. ¹³ They carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field at Machpelah near Mamre, which Abraham had bought along with the field from Ephron the Hittite so he could have a place to bury his family. ¹⁴ After he had buried his father, Joseph gathered his brothers and the vast company of mourners who had journeyed with him to bury his father, and they all returned to Egypt.

¹⁵ When Joseph’s brothers began to realize the implications of their father’s death, Joseph’s brothers began to worry.

¹⁶ So they sent a message to Joseph.

Joseph cried when they spoke these words to him. ¹⁸ And his brothers approached and fell at his feet.

So Joseph reassured them and continued to speak kindly to them.

²² Now Joseph remained in Egypt for the rest of his life—he and all of his father’s household. He lived to be 110 years old, ²³ long enough to see Ephraim’s children down to the third generation. Joseph adopted the children of Machir (Manasseh’s son) and brought them up as his own. ²⁴ One day, Joseph told his brothers,

²⁵ At that, Joseph made the rest of Israel’s sons swear to him an oath.

²⁶ Then Joseph died. He was 110 years old, and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.

1 These are the names of Israel’s sons—the ones who traveled from Canaan and entered into Egypt with Jacob during the great famine. Each of these men arrived in Egypt with his family:

² Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;

³ Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;

⁴ Dan and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

⁵ At that time, Jacob had 70 children and grandchildren. All of them came to Egypt, except for Joseph; he was already there.^{[a] 6} Joseph died, and so did all of his brothers. It was not long before that entire generation was gone. ⁷ But the people of Israel were prolific; they had children easily, and their numbers increased rapidly. As their numbers grew so did their strength. Eventually, they filled the land.

⁸ One day, a new king came to power and ruled over Egypt, but this king had no knowledge of Joseph.

¹¹ So the Egyptian authorities enslaved the Israelites and appointed cruel slave drivers over them to oppress them with hard, back-breaking labor. They forced them to build the storage cities of Pithom and Raamses for Pharaoh.

¹² But the harder the slave drivers pushed the Israelites, the more rapidly they had children and spread throughout the land. Because of this, the Egyptians grew to detest the Israelites even more ¹³ and violently forced them to work until they were sore and tired—far beyond exhaustion. ¹⁴ The Egyptians made life bitter for all those Israelites forced to mix mortar, make bricks, and do all types of grueling work in the fields. They tormented their Israelite slaves until all the work was done.

¹⁵ Pharaoh, Egypt’s king, called for some of the Hebrew midwives. Their names were Shiphrah and Puah.

¹⁷ But the midwives respected God more than they feared Pharaoh, so they did not carry out the Egyptian king’s command. Instead, they let all the boys live. ¹⁸ When Egypt’s king heard this news, he sent for the midwives.

²⁰ God was good to the midwives, and under their care the Israelite women had many more children. Despite Pharaoh’s orders, the people of Israel became stronger and more powerful. ²¹ Because the midwives respected God, He blessed them with families of their own. ²² In response to the rapid growth in the Hebrew population, Pharaoh issued a command to his people.

2 One day a man and woman—both from the tribe of Levi—married. ² She became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that her son was healthy and beautiful, she feared for his safety; so she kept him hidden from view for three whole months.

³ When she could no longer keep him hidden away, she took a basket made of reeds, sealed it with tar and pitch, and placed her baby boy in it. Then she wedged the basket among the reeds along the edge of the Nile River.

⁴ All the while, the child’s sister watched from a distance to see what might happen to her baby brother.

⁵ Later on Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the river while her young attendants walked along the bank nearby. Pharaoh’s daughter noticed the basket wedged among the reeds and wondered what it might contain. So she instructed her maid to bring it to her. ⁶ When Pharaoh’s daughter opened the basket, she found the baby boy. He was crying, and her heart melted with compassion.

So the baby’s sister went and fetched his mother. The boy’s mother approached Pharaoh’s daughter.

So the woman took the child—who was secretly her own son—and nursed him just as Pharaoh’s daughter had instructed.

¹⁰ The boy grew, and when the time was right, the woman brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she adopted him as her own. She named him Moses because, as she explained, “I took him out of the water.”

¹³ Jesus then went to Caesarea Philippi.

²⁰ And Jesus ordered His disciples to keep these teachings secret.

²¹ Then Jesus began to tell the disciples about what would happen to Him. He said He would have to go to Jerusalem. There the elders, chief priests, and scribes would meet Him; He would suffer at their hands; and He would be killed. But three days later, He would be raised to new life.

²² As Jesus spoke of the things to come, Peter took Him aside. Sad and confused, and maybe a little bit prideful, Peter chastised Jesus.

17 Six days later, Jesus went up to the top of a high mountain with Peter, James, and John. ² There, something spectacular happened: Jesus’ face began to glow and gleam and shine like the morning sun. His clothes gleamed too—bright white, like sunlight mirroring off a snowfall. He was, in a word, transfigured. ³ Suddenly there at the top of the mountain were Moses and Elijah, those icons of the faith, beloved of God. And they talked to Jesus.

⁵ As Peter spoke, a bright cloud enveloped all of them.

⁶ This voice from heaven terrified the three disciples, and they fell prostrate on the ground. ⁷ But Jesus—who was, by this time, used to His disciples being plagued by fear—touched them.

⁸ And when the disciples got up, they saw they were alone with their Lord.

⁹ The four men hiked back down the mountain, and Jesus told His disciples to stay silent.

Psalm 21

For the worship leader. A song of David.